5".  w^'^a 

LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON.  N.  J. 


PRESENTED  BY 


The  John  Dixon  Estate 


Division  .•lj>^_^^\M 
Section. -ii-J _/ I    O 


1873 


^M'^'lt  1938 

NOTES  xjtocicALSt*:!^ 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  OUR  LORD. 


EICHAED  CHENEYIX  TEENCII,  D.D., 

.\BCHBI8H0P  OF  DUBLIN. 


iO-IF  EDITION'. 
REVISED,   WITH   ADDITIONS, 


NEW  YOKE: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

5  4  9    &    55  1    BROADWAY. 
1873. 


^ 


CONTENTS. 


PEELIMINARY  ESSAY. 

CHAPIER  PAGS 

I.  Ok  the  Names  of  the  Miracles i 


II.  The  Miracles  axd  Nature 


^J 


III.  The  Authority  of  Miracles 23 

IV.  The   Evangelical,    compared    with    other   Cycles    op 

Miracles 36 

V.  The  Assaults  ok  the  Miracles 62 

VI.  The  Apologetic  Worth  of  the  Miracles        .        .        .94 

MIRACLES. 

—I.  The  "Water  tueked  ixto  Wike 105    w 

^2.  The  IIealixg  of  the  Nobleman's  Sok        ,        .        .        .126 
*-3.  The  First  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes       .        .        .134 

>.  4.  The  Stilling  of  the  Tempest 151 

--.5.  The  Demoniacs  in  the  Country  of  the  Gadarenes  160 

■-  6.  The  Raising  of  Jairus'  Daughter 190  • 

-—7.  The  Healing  of  the  Woman  -with  an  Issue  of  Blood  .    200 
~-8.  The  Opening  of  the  Eyes  of  Two  Blind  in  the  House    208 

».9.  The  Healing  of  the  Paralytic 21s 

-10.  The  Cleansing  op  the  Leper 224 

-II.  The  Healing  of  the  Centurion's  Servant       .        .        ,    236    • 
-12.  The  Demoniac  in  the  Synagogue  of  Capernaum    .        .    244 


vi  CONTENTS. 

FACE 

-13.  The  Healing  of  Simon's  Wife's  Mother.        .        .        .  248 

_J4.  The  Raising  of  the  Widow's  Son     .....  254 

-55.  The  Healing  of  the  IiiroTENi  Man  at  Bethesda   .        .  259   v 

—  6.  The  Miraculous  Feeding  of  Five  Thousand    ,        .        .  278 

-17.  The  Walking  on  the  Sea 291 

-18.  The  Opening  of  the  Exes  of  one  born  Blind         .        .  305 

-19.  The  Restoring  of  the  Man  -with  a  AVithered  Hand    .  330 

20.  The    Restoring    of    the    Woman    with   a     Spirit    of 

Infirmity 342 

21.  The  Healing  of  the  Man  with  a  Dropsy       .        .        .348 

-2  2.  The  Cleansing  of  the  Ten  Lepers 351 

-23.  The  Healing  of  the  Daughter  of  the  Syrophcenician 

Woman 359 

— r4.  The  Healing  of  one  Deaf  and  Dumb       .        .        .        .370 


>.25.  The  Miraculous  Feeding  of  Four  Thousand  .        .        ,  376 

26.  The  Opening  of  the  Eyes  of  one  Blind  at  Bethsaida  ,  380 

-27.  The  Healing  of  the  Lunatic  Child         .        .        .        .  384  ^ 

.28.  The  Stater  in  the  Fish's  Mouth 394 

.29.  The  Raising  of  Lazarus 410 

30.  The  Opening   of    the  Eyes   of    Two  Blind  Men    near 

Jericho 455 

^i.  The  Cursing  of  the  Barren  Fig-Tree      ....  462 

_32.  The  Healing  of  Malchus'  Ear 474 

,  jj.  The  Second  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes  .       ,       ,  480 


PRELIMINARY   ESSAY. 

CHAPTEE  I. 
OX  THE  NAMES  OF  THE  MIRACLES. 

EVERY  discussion  about  a  tiling  will  best  proceed  from 
an  investigation  of  the  name  or  names  wliich  it  bears  ; 
for  the  name  seizes  and  presents  tlie  most  distinctive 
features,  tbe  innermost  nature  of  tlie  tbing,  embodying 
tbis  for  us  in  a  word.  In  tbe  name  we  have  a  witness  to 
that  wbicb  tbe  universal  sense  of  men,  finding  its  utter- 
ance in  language,  bas  ever  felt  tbus  to  lie  at  tbe  beart  of 
tbe  tbing ;  and  if  we  would  learn  to  know  tbis,  we  must 
start  witb  an  investigation  of  tbe  name  or  names  wbicb  it 
bears.  In  tbe  discussion  upon  v/bicb  now  we  are  entering, 
tbere  is  not  one  name  only,  but  many,  to  consider ;  for  it 
results  from  wbat  just  bas  been  said,  tbat  wbere  we  bave 
to  do  witb  augbt  wbicb  in  many  ways  is  significant,  tbe 
names  also  will  inevitably  be  many,  since  no  one  ■v\ill 
exbaust  all  its  meaning.  Eacb  of  tbese  will  embody  a 
portion  of  its  essential  qualities,  will  present  it  upon  some 
single  side ;  and  not  from  tbe  contemplation  exclusively 
of  any  one,  but  only  of  all  of  tbese  together,  will  any 
adequate  conception  of  tbat  wbicb  we  desire  to  understand 
be  obtained.  Tbus  wbat  we  commonly  call  miracles,  are 
in  tbe  sacred  Scriptures  termed  sometimes  '  wonders,' 
sometimes  '  signs,'  sometimes  '  powers,'  sometimes  simply 
*  works.'  Some  otber  titles  wbicb  tbey  bear,  of  rarer 
occurrence,  will  easily  range  themselves  under  one  or 
other  of  tbese ; — on  eacb  of  which  it  will  be  well  to  say 


2  ON  THE  NAMES 

something,   before   making   any  further   advance  in   the 
Bubject. 

I .  In  the  name  '  wonder,*  ^  the  astonishment,  which  the 
work  produces  upon  the  behoklers,  an  astonishment  often 
graphically  portrayed  by  the  Evangelists -when  relri-ting  our 
Lord's  miracles  (Mark  ii.  12  ;  iv.  41 ;  vi.  51 ;  vii.  37  ;  cf. 
Acts  iii,  10,  11),  is  transferred  to  the  work  itself.  This 
word,  as  will  at  once  be  felt,  does  but  touch  the  outside  of 
the  matter.  The  ethical  meaning  of  the  miracle  would 
be  wholly  lost,  were  blank  astonishment  or  mere  amaze- 
ment all  which  it  aroused ;  since  the  same  effect  might  be 
produced  by  a  thousand  meaner  causes.  Indeed  it  is  not 
a  little  remarkable,  rather  is  it  j)rofoundly  characteristic 
of  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  as  Origen  noted 
long  ago,^  that  this  name  '  wonders '  is  never  applied  to 
them  but  in  connexion  with  some  other  name.  They  are 
continually  '  signs  awcZ  wonders '  (Acts  xiv.  3  ;  Eom.  xv.  19  ; 
Matt.  xxiv.  24  ;  Heb.  ii.  4) ;  or  '  signs  '  alone  (John  ii.  1 1  ; 
Acts  viii.  6 ;  Eev.  xiii.  13) ;  or  'powers  '  alone  (Mark  vi. 
14  ;  Acts  xix.  11);  but  never  '  wonders  '  alone.^  ISTot  that 
the  miracle,  considered  simply  as  a  wonder,  as  an  astonish- 
ing event  which  the  beholders  can  reduce  to  no  law  with 
which  they  are  acquainted,  is  even  as  such  without  its 
meaning  and  its  purpose ;  that  purpose  being  forcibly  to 
startle  men  from  the  dull  dream  of  a  sense-bound  existence, 

*  T'tpai;.  The  term  '^'avfia,  near  akin  to  r£pnc,  and  frequent  in  the  Greek 
Fathers,  never  occurs  in  Scripture  ;  eav^iaawv  only  once  (Matt.  xxi.  15)  ; 
but  the  Qav^ui^iiv  is  often  brought  out  as  a  consequence  (Matt.  viii.  27  ; 
ix.  8,  33  ;  XV.  31,  &c.).  Uapaco'ioy,  which  expresses  the  unexpected 
character  of  the  wonder,  its  contradiction  to  previous  expectation,  and 
80  the  astonishment  which  it  causes, — a  word  frequent  in  ecclesiastical 
Greek, — is  found  only  at  Luke  v.  26  ;  cf.  Num.  xvi.  30. 

'^  In  Joh.  torn.  xiii.  §  6. 

^  We  must  regret  that  words,  only  subordinate  in  the  Greek,  should 
be  chief  with  us, — '  wonder '  I  mean,  and  '  miracle,' — to  designate  these 
divine  facts,  bringing  out,  as  they  do,  only  the  accidental  accompaniment, 
the  adonishment  which  the  work  creates,  and  so  little  entering  into  the 
deeper  meaning  of  the  work  itself.  The  Latin  miracuhan  (not  properly  a 
substantive,  but  the  neuter  of  miraculus)  and  the  German  Wunder  lie 
under  exactly  the  same  defect. 


OF   THE  MIRACLES.  3 

and,  liowever  it  may  not  be  itself  an  appeal  to  the  spiritual 
in  man,  yet  to  act  as  a  summons  to  him  that  he  now  open 
his  eyes  to  the  spiritual  appeal  which  is  about  to  be 
addrest  to  him  (Acts  xiv.  8-18). 

2.  But  the  miracle  is  not  a  '  wonder '  only  ;  it  is  also  a 
^  sign,'^  a  token  and  indication  of  the  near  presence  and 
working  of  God.  In  this  word  the  ethical  purpose  of  the 
miracle  comes  out  the  most  prominently,  as  in  '  wonder ' 
the  least.  They  are  signs  and  pledges  of  something  more 
than  and  beyond  themselves  (Isai.  vii.  1 1 ;  xxxviii.  7) ;  ^ 
valuable,  not  so  much  for  what  they  are,  as  for  what  they 

^  2j;//f7o)'.  "We  notice  here  tLat  defect,  too  common  in  our  English 
Version,  that  it  does  not  seek,  so  for  as  possible,  to  render  one  word  of 
the  original  always  by  one  and  the  same  word  in  English,  but  varies  its 
renderings  with  no  necessity  compelling.  S/j/uToi'  might  very  well  have 
been  rendered  '  sign '  throughout ;  but  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  where 
it  is  of  continual  recurrence,  far  oftener  than  not, '  sign  '  gives  place  to  the 
vaguer  '  miracle,'  and  this  sometimes  with  manifest  injury  to  the  sense; 
thus  see  iii.  2  ;  vii.  31 ;  x.  41  ;  and  especially  vi.  26.  Our  Version  makes 
Christ  say  to  the  multitude,  who,  after  He  had  once  fed  them,  gathered 
round  Him  again,  *  Ye  seek  Me,  not  because  ye  saw  the  miracles,^  &c.  It 
should  have  been,  '  Ye  seek  Me,  not  because  ye  saw  signs '  (r^ijutia  with- 
out the  article),  'not  because  ye  recognized  in  those  works  of  mine  tokens 
and  intimations  of  a  higher  presence,  such  as  led  you  to  conceive  great 
thoughts  of  Me  :  no  such  glimpses  of  my  higher  nature  bririg  you  here ; 
but  you  come  that  you  may  again  be  filled.'  The  coming  merely  because 
they  had  seen  miracles,  works  that  had  made  them  marvel,  and  hoped  to 
see  such  again,  would  as  little  have  satisfied  the  Lord  as  a  coming  only 
for  the  supply  of  their  lowest  earthly  wants  (Matt.  xii.  39  ;  xvi,  i--4). 

'  33asil  {in  loc.^  :  'Errn  (njfittov  Trpay/.ia  ^ai'fpoi',  KtKpvi.tji'irov  rivbg  k-ni 
aparovciv  lavrip  tiji'  cij\io(tiv  ixov:  and  presently  after,  it  n'ivr 01  Vfia'pii  rd 
Trapddo^a,   koI  TrapanrariKa  -(vog  nvariKov  \6yuv  (T>j/(tirt  KaXtl,      And  Lampe 

well  {Co7nm.  in  Joh.  vol.  i.  p.  513):  Desiguat  sane  ffijut'tov  natura  sua 
rem  non  tantum  extraordinariam,  sersusque  percellentem,  sed  etiam 
taleni,  quje  in  rei  alterius,  absentis  licet  et  futuras,  signijicationem  atque 
adumhrationem  adhibetur,  unde  et  prognostica  (Matt.  xvi.  3)  et  typi 
(^latt.  xii.  39  ;  Luc.  xi.  29),  nee  non  sacramenta,  quale  est  illud  circum- 
cisionis  (Rom.  iv.  1 1),  eodem  nomine  in  Novo  Testamento  exprimi  solent. 
Aptissime  ergo  hsec  vox  de  miraculis  usurpatur,  ut  indicet,  quod  non  tan- 
tum admirabili  modo  fuerint  perpetrata,  sed  etiam  sapientissimo  consilio 
Dei  ita  directa  atque  ordinata,  ut  fuerint  simul  characteres  Messife,  ex 
quibus  cognoscendus  erat,  sif/illa  doctrinfe  quam  proferebat,  et  beneficio- 
rum  gratife  per  Messiara  jam  prsestandjB,  nee  non  ti/pi  viarum  Dei, 
earumque  circumstantiarum  per  quas  talia  beneficia  erant  applicanda. 


4  ON  THE  NAMES 

indicate  of  tlie  grace  and  power  of  the  doer,  or  of  the  con- 
nexion in  which  he  stands  with  a  higher  world.  Often- 
times they  are  thus  seals  of  power  set  to  the  person  who 
accomplishes  them  ('the  Lord  confirming  the  word  by 
signs  following,'  Mark  xvi.  20 ;  Acts  xiv.  3  ;  Heb.  ii.  4)  ; 
legitimating  acts,  by  which  he  claims  to  be  attended  to  as 
a  messenger  from  God.*  *  What  sign  showest  thou '  (John 
ii.  18)  ■?  was  the  question  which  the  Jews  asked,  when 
they  wanted  the  Lord  to  justify  the  things  which  He  was 
doing,  by  showing  that  He  had  especial  authority  to  do 
them.  Again  they  say, '  We  would  see  a  sign  from  Thee ' 
(Matt.  xii.  38) ;  '  Show  us  a  sign  from  heaven '  (Matt.  xvi.  i). 
St.  Paul  speaks  of  himself  as  having  '  the  signs  of  an 
apostle '  (2  Cor.  xii.  1 2) ,  in  other  words,  the  tokens  which 
designate  him  as  such.  Thus,  too,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
when  God  sends  Moses  to  deliver  Israel  He  furnishes  him 
with  two  'signs.'  He  warns  him  that  Pharaoh  will 
require  him  to  legitimate  his  mission,  to  produce  his 
credentials  that  he  is  indeed  God's  ambassador,  and 
equips  him  with  the  powers  which  shall  justify  him  as 
such,  which,  in  other  words,  shall  be  his  '  signs '  (Exod. 
vii.  9,  10).  He  '  gave  a  sign '  to  the  prophet,  whom  He 
sent  to  protest  against  the  will-worship  of  Jeroboam 
(i  Kin.  xiii.  3).^^ 

^  The  Latin  momtnim,  whether  we  derive  it  with  Cicero  {De  Divin. 
i.  42)  from  nionstro,  or  with  Festus  from  moneo  (monstnim,  velut 
monestrum,  quod  monet  futurum),  though  commonly  used  as  =  Tioag 
(Nee  dubiis  ea  signa  dedit  Tritonia  monstris,  A£n.  ii.  171  j  vii.  81,  270), 
is  in  truth  by  either  etymology  more  nearly  related  to  o-Tj/tttd)'.  Thus 
Augustine,  who  follows  Cicero's  derivation  (Z^e  Civ.  Dei,  xxi.  8) : 
Moustra  sane  dicta  perhibent  a  mon«trando,  quod  aliquid  siguificando 
demonstrant,  et  ostenta  iib  ostendendo,  et  portenta  a  portendendo,  id  est 
prpeostendendo,  et  prodi^ia  quod  porro  dicaut,  id  est  futura  preedicant. 
And  In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xvi. :  Prodigium  appellatum  est  quasi  porrodicium, 
quod  pnrro  dicat,  porro  significet,  et  aliquid  futurum  esse  portendat. 
See  Pauly,  Real-Enajdojnidie,  vol.  ii.  p.  1139. 

*  Occasionally  cn.fxdor  loses  its  special  and  higher  signification,  and  is 
used  simply  as  =  rffmc.  Herod  hoped  to  have  seen  some  '  sign  '  (-•iii-ttloi') 
wrought  by  Christ  (Luke  x.xiii.  8),  but  few  things  he  would  have  desired 
less  than  a  sign  or  indication  of  a  present  God ;  what  he  wanted  was 
some  glaring  feat  to  set  him  agape — a  ripac, — or,  more  properly  yet,  a 
9<ivfiii,  in  the  lowest  sense  of  the  word. 


OF  THE  MIRACLES.  5 

At  tlie  same  time  it  may  be  convenient  here  to  observe 
tliat  the  '  sign '  is  not  of  necessity  a  miracle,  although  only 
as  such  it  has  a  place  in  our  discussion.  Many  a  common 
matter  may  be  a  *  sign '  or  seal  set  to  the  truth  of  some 
word,  the  announcement  of  which  goes  along  with  it;  so 
that  when  that  '  sign '  comes  true,  it  may  be  accepted  as 
a  pledge  that  the  greater  matter,  which  was,  as  it  were, 
bound  up  with  it,  shall  also  come  true  in  its  time.  Thus 
the  Angels  give  to  the  shepherds  for  'a  sign'  their  finding 
of  the  Child  wrapt  in  swaddling  clothes  in  a  manger  (Luke 
ii.  12,  cf.  Exod.  iii.  12).^  Samuel  gives  to  Saul  three 
*  signs '  that  God  has  indeed  appointed  him  king  over 
Israel,  and  only  the  last  of  these  is  linked  with  aught 
supernatural  (i  Sam.  x.  1-9).  The  prophet  gave  Eli  the 
death  of  his  two  sons  as  a  '  sign '  that  his  threatening 
word  should  come  true  (i  Sam.  ii.  34,  cf.  Jer.  xliv.  2g,  38)* 
God  gave  to  Gideon  a  '  sign '  in  the  camp  of  the  Midian- 
ites  of  the  victory  which  he  should  win  (Judg.  vii.  9-15), 
though  the  word  does  not  happen  to  occur'  (cf.  2  Kin.  vii. 

^  Cf.  Virgil,  ^n,  viii.  42-45,  81-83, 

"^  The  words  r-.p  ig  and  ar]uuov  stand  linked  together,  not  merely  in  the 
New  Testament  (Acts  ii.  22 ;  iv.  3c;  2  Cor.  xii.  12  ;  John  iv.  48),  but 
frequently  in  the  Old  (Exod.  vii.  3,  9 ;  xi.  9  ;  Deut.  iv.  34;  vi.  22,  and 
often ;  Neh.  ix.  10  ;  Isai.  viii.  18  ;  xx.  3  ;  Dan.  iv.  2 ;  vi.  27  ;  Ps.  Ixxxvii. 
43  ;  civ.  27  ;  cxxxiv.  9,  LXX)  ;  and  no  less  in  profane  Greek  (Polybius, 
iii.  112,8;  ^lian,  V.  H.  xii.  57;  Josephus,  Antiqq.  xx.  8,  6;  Philo, 
De  Vit.  Mos.  i.  16;  Plutarch,  Sept.  Sap.  Conv.  iii.).  The  distinction 
between  them,  as  though  the  rfpat,"  were  the  7nore  wonderful,  the  rji)^n~tov 
the  less  so. — as  though  it  would  be  a  ffrjiielor  to  heal  the  sick,  a  Tfpa<;  to 
open  the  blind  eyes,  or  to  raise  the  dead  (so  Ammonius,  Cat.  in  Jok. 

IV.  48  :  rfjUif  icrri  rb  Trapa  i:v(ni',  olov  to  dvoi'^ai  vcp  )"\^wv(;  rr^Xuiv  khi  tytlpai 
j'lKpov  '  nijinloi'    ^t    TO   oi)k  t^io    ttJi;  (pvaiwc,  ohU'   IrtTiv    lanitnUm    d'lpwrrroi'^^ 

is  quite  untenable,  however  frequent  among  some  of  the  Greek  Fathers 
(see  Suicer,  Thes.  s.  v.  rr/j/itToi).  Neither  will  Origen's  distinction  stand 
(in  Rom.  xv.  19)  :  Signa  appellantur,  in  quibus  cum  sit  aliquid  mirabile, 
indicatur  quoque  aliquid  futurum.  Prodigia  vero  in  quibus  tantuni- 
modo  aliquid  mirabile  ostenditur.  Rather  the  same  miracle  is  upon 
one  side  a  r'luac,  on  another  a  (nj/aiov ;  and  the  words  most  often  refer 
not  to  different  classes  of  miracles,  but  to  ditferent  qualities  in  the 
same  miracles ;  so  Fritzsche :  Eandem  rem  diverse  festimatam  expri- 
munt;  and  Lampe  (Comm.  in  Joh.  vol.  i.  p.  513)  :  Eadera  miracula  dici 
possunt  sif/na,  qiiatenus  aliquid  sen  occultum  seu  futurum  decent ;  et 
prodiffia   [TtpuTu),   quatenus   aliquid    extraordinarium,    quod   stuporem 


6  ON  THE  NAMES 

2,  17-20).  Or  it  is  j)Ossible  for  a  man,  under  a  strong 
conviction  that  the  hand  of  God  is  leading  him,  to  set 
such  or  such  a  contingent  event  as  a  *  sign '  to  himself, 
the  falling  out  of  which  in  this  way  or  in  that  he  will 
accept  as  an  intimation  from  God  of  what  He  would  have 
him  to  do.  Examples  of  this  also  are  not  uncommon  in 
Scripture  (Gen.  xxiv.  14-21;  Judg.  vi.  36-40;  i  Sam. 
xiv.  8-13).  "Very  curious,  and  standing  by  themselves, 
are  the  *  signs  '  which  shall  only  come  to  pass,  after  that 
of  which  they  were  the  signs  has  actually  befallen ;  but 
which  shall  still  serve  to  confirm  it,  as  having  been 
wrought  directly  of  God ;  thus  see  Exod.  iii.  1 2 ;  2  Kin. 
xix.  29. 

3.  Frequently  also  the  miracles  are  styled  'powers '  or 

'mighty  worJcs,'  that  is,  of  God.'     As  in  the  term  '  wonder ' 

or  '  miracle,'  the  effect  is  transferred  and  gives  a  name  to 

the  cause,  so  here  the  cause  gives  its  name  to  the  effect.'* 

The  'poiver'  dwells  originally  in  the  divine  Messenger 

(Acts  vi.  8  ;  x.  38  ;  Eom.  xv.  19) ;  is  one  with  which  he  is 

himself  equipped  of  God.     Christ  is  thus  in  the  highest 

sense  that  which  Simon  blasphemously  suffered  himself  to 

be  named,  *  The  great  Poiver  of  God  '  (Acts  viii.  10).     But 

then,  by  an  easy  transition,  the  word  comes  to  signify  the 

exertions    and   separate    puttings    forth    of    this   power. 

These  are  *  powers  '  in  the  plural,  although  the  same  word 

excitat,  sistuut.  Hinc  sequitur  sic/normn  notionem  latins  patere,  qnam 
prodif/ionmi.  Omnia  prodigia  sunt  sit/na,  quia  in  ilium  usum  a  Deo 
dispeusata,  ut  arcanum  indicent.  Sed  omnia  signa  non  sunt  prodif/ia, 
quia  ad  signandum  res  cselestes  aliquando  etiam  res  communes  adhi- 
bentur.  Cf.  2  Chron.  xxxii.  24,  31;  where  at  ver.  24.  that  is  called  a 
atjfiHnv,  "which  at  ver.  31  is  a  Tepag  (LXX).  See  my  Syuoiiyms  of  the 
Neto  Testament,  §  91. 

'  Ai'j/rt/iag  =  Tirtutes. 

^  With  this  i^ovaicx  is  related,  -which  yet  only  once  occurs  to  de- 
signate a  miracle.  They  are  termed  ivoo^a  (Luke  xiii.  17),  as  being 
works  in  which  the  ^6la  of  God  came  eminently  out  (see  John  ii.  11; 
xi.  40),  and  which  in  return  caused  men  to  glorify  Him  (Mark  ii.  12). 
They  are  /icyaXHa  (=  raagnalia,  Luke  i.  49),  as  outcomings  of  the  great* 
ncss  of  God's  power. 


OF  THE  MIRACLES.  ^ 

is  now  translated  in  our  Version  '  wonderful  works '  (Matt. 
vii.  22),  and  now,  'mighty  works'  (Matt.  xi.  20;  Mark 
vi.  14;  Luke  x.  13),  and  still  more  frequently,  'miracles' 
(Acts  ii.  22;  xix.  ii  ;  I  Cor.  xii.  10,  28;  Gal.  iii.  5)  ;  in 
this  last  case  giving  such  tautologies  as  this,  'miracles 
and  wonders '  (Acts  ii.  22  ;  Heb.  ii.  4) ;  and  obscuring  for 
us  the  express  purpose  of  the  word,  pointing  as  it  does  to 
new  'powers  which  have  entered,  and  are  working  in,  this 
world  of  ours. 

These  three  terms,  *  wonders,'  '  signs,'  and  '  powers,' 
occur  three  times  in  connexion  with  one  another  (Acts 
ii.  22  ;  2  Cor.  xii.  12;  2  Thess.  ii.  9),  although  on  each 
occasion  in  a  different  order.  They  are  all,  as  has  already 
been  noted  in  the  case  of  two  of  them,  rather  descriptive 
of  different  aspects  of  the  same  works,  than  themselves 
different  classes  of  works.'  An  example  of  one  of  our 
Lord's  miracles  will  illustrate  what  I  say.  The  healing 
of  the  paralytic  (Mark  ii.  1-12)  was  a  wonder,  for  they 
who  beheld  it  '  were  all  amazed-,'  it  was  a  fower,  for  the 
man  at  Christ's  word  '  arose,  took  up  his  bed,  and  went 
out  before  them  all ; '  it  was  a  sign,  for  it  gave  token  that 
One  greater  than  men  deemed  was  among  them ;  it  stood 
in  connexion  with  a  higher  fact  of  which  it  was  the  sign 
and  seal  (cf.  i  Kin.  xiii.  3;  2  Kin.  i.  10),  being  wrought 
that  they  might  '  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins.'  ^ 

^  Pelt's  definition  {Comm.  in  Thess.  p.  179)  is  brief  and  good: 
Pariim  differunt  tria  ista  ^via^ug,  mun'ta^  ripara.  A/ra/df  numero  sin- 
gular! tamen  est  vis  miraculorum  edendorum ;  nrjfiila  quatenus  com- 
probandse  inserviunt  doctrinae  sive  missioni  divinte ;  Tiam  portenta 
sunt,  quae  admirationem  et  stuporera  excitant.  Cf.  Calvin  on  2  Cor. 
xii.  1 2  :  Sig^a  porro  vocantur,  quod  non  sunt  inania  spectacula,  sed  quae 
destinata  sunt  docendis  hominibus.  Prodigia,  quod  sua  novitate  experge- 
facere  homines  debent,  et  percellere.  Potentiae  aut  virtutes,  quod  su)it 
niagia  insignia  specimina  divinse  potentiae,  quam  quae  ceruimus  in  ordi- 
nario  naturae  cursu. 

^  Of  the  verbs  connected  with  these  nouns  vre  may  observe  in  the 
first  three  Evangelists,  ainjtln  liSorai  (Matt.  xii.  39  ;  xxiv.  24;  Mark  viii. 
12),  end  still  more  frequently  oivo^uif  ■noiuf  (Matt.  vii.  22;  xiii.  58; 


8  ON  THE  NAMES   OF  THE  MIRACLES. 

4.  Eminentl}^  significant  is  another  term  by  whicli  St. 
Jolin  very  frequently  names  the  miracles.  They  are  con- 
stantly for  him  simply  *  worls ' '  (v.  36 ;  vii.  21;  x.  25,  32, 
38  ;  xiv.  II,  12;  XV.  24;  cf.  Matt.  xi.  2);  as  though  the 
wonderful  were  only  the  natural  form  of  working  for  Him 
who  is  dwelt  in  by  all  the  fulness  of  God ;  He  must,  out 
of  the  necessity  of  his  higher  being,  bring  forth  these 
works  greater  than  man's.  They  are  the  periphery  of 
that  circle  whereof  He  is  the  centre.  The  great  miracle 
is  the  Incarnation  ;  all  else,  so  to  speak,  follows  naturally 
and  of  course.  It  is  no  wonder  that  He  whose  name  is 
'  Wonderful '  (Isai.  ix.  6)  does  works  of  wonder ;  the  only 
wonder  w^ould  be  if  He  did  them  not.'^  The  sun  in  the 
heavens  is  itself  a  wonder ;  but  it  is  not  a  wonder  that, 
being  what  it  is,  it  rays  forth  its  effluences  of  light  and 
heat.  These  miracles  are  the  fruit  after  its  kind  which 
the  divine  tree  brings  forth ;  and  may,  with  a  deep  truth, 
be  styled  the  '  works  ' '  of  Christ,  with  no  further  addition 
or  explanation. 

Mark  ix.  39,  &c.).  Neither  phrase  occurs  in  St.  John,  but  ariiina  ttou'ii/ 
continually  (ii.  1 1  ;  iii.  2  ;  iv.  54. ;  &c.),  which  is  altogether  wanting  in 
the  earlier  Evangelists;  but  occurs  in  Acts  (vii.  36  ;  xv.  12)  and  in  the 
lievelation  (xiii.  13;  xis.  20).  Once  St.  John  has  aiifnui  Sukvvhv 
(ii.  18). 

*  The  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament  are  called  tpya,  Heb.  ili,  9; 
Ps.  xciv.  9,  LXX. 

*  Augustine  {In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xvii.)  :  Mirum  non  esse  debet  a  Dec 

factum  miraculuni Magis   gaudere   et  admirari  debemus  quia 

Dominus  noster  et  Salvator  Jesus  Christus  homo  factus  est,  quam  quod 
divina  inter  homines  Deus  fecit. 

'  This  interpretation  of  fpy",  as  used  by  St.  John,  has  sometimes  been 
called  in  question,  and  by  this  word  has  been  understood  the  sum  total 
of  his  acts  and  his  teachings,  his  words  and  his  works,  as  they  came 
under  the  eyes  of  men  ;  not  indeed  excluding  the  miracles,  but  including 
very  much  besides.  The  one  passage  urged  in  proof  with  any  apparent 
force  (John  xvii.  4)  is  beside  the  question  ;  for  that  fpyoi-  in  the  singular 
may,  and  here  does,  signify  his  whole  work  and  task,  is  beyond  all  doubt; 
but  that  his  tpyn  are  his  miracles,  the  following  passages,  v.  36  ;  x.  25, 
32,  38;  xiv.  II  ;  XV.  24;  to  which  others  might  be  added,  decisively 
prove. 


CHAPTER  IL 
THE  MIRACLES  AND  NATURE. 

WHEREIN,  it  may  be  asked,  does  the  miracle  dili'er 
from  any  event  in  tlie  ordinary  course  of  nature? 
For  that  too  is  wonderful ;  the  fact  that  it  is  a  marvel  of 
continual  recurrence  may  rob  it,  subjectively,  of  our  ad- 
miration; we  may  be  content  to  look  at  it  with  a  dull 
incurious  eye,  and  to  think  we  find  in  its  constant  repeti- 
tion the  explanation  of  its  law,  even  as  we  often  find  in 
this  a  reason  for  excusing  ourselves  altogether  from 
wonder  and  reverent  admiration  ;  *  yet  it  does  not  remain 
the  less  a  marvel  still. 

To  this  question  some  have  answered,  that  since  all  is 
thus  marvellous,  since  the  grass  growing,  the  seed  sprout- 
ing, the  sun  rising,  are  as  much  tbe   result  of  powers 

^  See  Augustine  De  Gen.  ad  Lit.  xii.  iS  ;  7>e  Civ.  Dei,  xxi.  8,  3  ;  and 
Gregory  the  Great  {Horn.  xxvi.  inEvmig.)  :  Quotidiana  Dei  miracula  ex 
assiduitate  viluerunt.  Of.  Cicero,  De  Nat.  Deor.  ii.  38  ;  and  Lucretius, 
a.  1027-1038 : — 

Nil  adeo  magnum,  nee  tarn  mirabile  quidquaui 
Principio,  quod  non  minuant  mirarier  omues 
Paulatim:  ut  cajli  clarum  purumque  colorem, 
Quemque  in  se  cohibent  palantia  sidera  passim, 
Lunteque,  et  soli  prseclara  luce  nitorem  : 
Omnia  quiB  si  nunc  primum  mortalibus  adsint, 
Ex  improviso  ceu  sint  objecta  repente, 
Quid  magis  his  rebus  poterat  mirabile  dici, 
Aut  minus  ante  quod  auderent  fore  credere  gentes  r 
Nil,  ut  opinor ;  ita  h«c  species  miranda  fuisset ; 
Quum  tibi  jam  nemo  fessus  satiate  videndi 
Suspicere  in  cseli  dignatur  lucida  templa. 


10  THE   MIRACLES 

which  we  cannot  trace  or  measure,  as  the  water  turned 
into  wine,  or  tlie  sick  healed  by  a  word,  or  the  blind 
restored  to  vision  by  a  touch,  there  is  therefore  no  such 
thing  as  a  miracle,  eminently  so  called.  We  have  no 
right,  they  say,  in  the  mighty  and  complex  miracle  of 
nature  which  encircles  us  on  every  side,  to  separate  off  in 
an  arbitrary  manner  some  certain  facts,  and  to  affirm  of 
this  and  that  that  they  are  wonders,  and  all  the  rest 
ordinary  processes  of  nature ;  but  rather  we  must  confine 
ourselves  to  one  language  or  the  otiier,  and  count  all 
miracle,  or  nothing. 

But  this,  however  at  first  sight  it  may  seem  very  deep 
a.nd  true,  is  indeed  most  shallow  and  fallacious.  There  is 
quite  enough  in  itself  and  in  its  purjposes  to  distinguish 
that  which  we  call  by  this  name,  from  all  with  which  it  is 
thus  soujjht  to  be  confounded,  and  in  which  to  be  lost. 
The  distinction  indeed  which  is  sometimes  drawn,  that  in 
the  miracle  God  is  immediately  working,  and  in  other 
events  is  leaving  it  to  the  laws  which  He  has  established 
to  work,  cannot  at  all  be  allowed :  for  it  rests  on  a  dead 
mechanical  view  of  the  universe,  altogether  remote  from 
the  truth.  The  clock-maker  makes  his  clock,  and  leaves  it ; 
the  ship-builder  builds  and  launches  his  ship,  which  others 
navigate ;  but  the  world  is  no  curious  piece  of  mechanism 
which  its  Maker  constructs,  and  then  dismisses  from  his 
hands,  only  from  time  to  time  reviewing  and  repairing  it, 
but,  as  our  Lord  says,  '  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and 
I  work'  ( John  V.  17);  He  '  upholdeth  all  things  by  the 
word  of  his  power ' '  (Heb.  i.  3).     And  to  speak  of  'laws 

*  Augustine :  Sunt  qui  arbitrantur  tantummodo  mundum  ipsura  fact- 
um a  Deo  ;  cetera  jam  tieri  ab  ipso  muudo,  sicut  ille  ordinavit  et  jussit, 
Deum  autem  ipsum  nihil  operari.     Contra  quos  profertur  ilia  sententia 

Domini,  Pater  meus  usque  adhuc  oreratur,  et  ego  operor Neque 

enira,  sicut  a  structura  fedium,  cum  fiibricaverit  quis,  abscedit ;  atque  illo 
cessante  et  absente  stat  opus  ejus ;  ita  mundus  vel  ictu  oculi  stare  poterit, 
gi  ei  Deus  regimen  suura  subtraxerit.  So  Melanchlbon  {In  loc.  de  Crea- 
tione)  :  Intinnitas  humana  etiamsi  cogitat  Deum  esse  conditorem,  tamen 
p')stea  imaginatur,  ut  faber  discedit  a  navi  exstructa  et  relinquit  earn 


AND  NATURE.  ii 

of  God,'  '  laws  of  nature,'  may  become  to  us  a  language 
altogether  deceptive,  and  hiding  the  deeper  reality  from 
our  eyes.  Laws  of  God  exist  only  for  us.  It  is  a  will  of  God 
for  Himself.'  That  will  indeed,  being  the  will  of  highest 
wisdom  and  love,  excludes  all  wilfulness  ;  it  is  a  will  upon 
which  we  can  securely  count ;  from  the  past  expressions 
of  it  we  can  presume  its  future,  and  so  we  rightfully  call 
it  a  law.  But  still  from  moment  to  moment  it  is  a  will ; 
each  law,  as  we  term  it,  of  nature  is  only  that  which  we 
have  learned  concerning  this  will  in  that  particular  region 
of  its  activity.  To  say  then  that  there  is  more  of  the  will 
of  God  in  a  miracle  than  in  any  other  work  of  his,  is 
insufficient. 

Yet  while  we  deny  the  conclusion,  that  since  all  is  won- 
der, therefore  the  miracle,  commonly  so  called,  is  only  in 
the  same  way  as  the  ordinary  processes  of  nature  a  mani- 
festation of  the  presence  and  power  of  God,  we  must  not 
with  this  deny  the  truth  which  lies  in  this  statement. 
All  is  wonder ;  to  make  a  man  is  at  least  as  great  a 
marvel  as  to  raise  a  man  from  the  dead.  The  seed  that 
multiplies  in  the  furrow  is  as  marvellous  as  the  bread  that 
multiplied  in  Christ's  hands.  The  miracle  is  not  a  greater 
manifestation  of  God's  power  than  those  ordinary  and 
ever-repeated  processes;  but  it  is  a  different  manifesta- 
tion.'    By  those  other  God  is  speaking  at  all  times  and  to 

nautis;  ita  Deum  discedere  a  suo  opere,  et  rellnqui  creaturas  tantum 
propriae  gubernatioai ;  hsec  imaginatio  magnam  caliginem  offundit  animis 
et  parit  dubitationes,     Goethe  has  well  asked, 

Was  war'  ein  Gott,  der  nur  von  aussen  stiesse, 
Im  Kreis  das  All'  am  Finger  laufen  liesse  ? 
Ihm  ziemt's,  die  Welt  im  Innern  zu  bewegen, 
Natur  in  sich,  sich  in  Natur  zu  hegen, 
So  dass,  was  in  ihm  lebt  und  webt  und  ist, 
Nie  seine  Kraft,  nie  seinen  Geist  vermisst. 

*  Augustine  {De  Civ.  Dei,  xxi.  8)  :  Dei  voluntas  natura  rerum  est. 
Augustine  {Serm.  cexlii.  i)  :  In  homine  carnali  tota  regula  intelli- 
gendi  est  consuetude   cernendi.      Quod   solent  videre   credunt :    quod 
Don  iolent,  non  credunt.     .     .     .     Majora  quidem  miracula  sunt,  tot 

3. 


12  THE  MIRACLES 

all  the  world;  tliey  are  a  vast  unbroken  revelation  of 
Him.  'The  invisible  things  of  Him  are  clearly  seen, 
being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his 
eternal  power  and  Godhead'  (Rom.  i.  20).  Yet  from  the 
very  circumstance  that  nature  is  thus  speaking  evermore 
to  all,  that  this  speaking  is  diffused  over  all  time,  ad- 
dressed unto  aU  men,  that  its  sound  has  gone  out  into  all 
lands,  from  the  very  constancy  and  universality  of  this 
language,  it  may  fail  to  make  itself  heard.  It  cannot  be 
said  to  stand  in  nearer  relation  to  one  man  than  to  an- 
other, to  confirm  one  man's  word  more  than  that  of  others, 
to  address  one  man's  conscience  more  than  that  of  every 
other  man.  However  it  may  sometimes  have,  it  must 
often  lack,  a  peculiar  and  personal  significance.  But  in 
the  miracle,  wrought  in  the  sight  of  some  certain  men, 
and  claiming  their  special  attention,  there  is  a  speaking 
to  them  in  particular.  There  is  then  a  voice  in  nature 
which  addresses  itself  directly  to  them,  a  singling  of  them 
out  from  the  multitude.  It  is  plain  that  God  has  now  a 
peculiar  word  which  they  are  to  give  heed  to,  a  message  to 
which  He  is  bidding  them  to  listen.^ 

An  extraordinary  divine  causality,  and  not  that  ordi- 
nary which  we  acknowledge  everywhere  and  in  everything, 

quotidie  homines  nasci  qui  non  erant,  quam  paucos  resurrexisse  qui 
erant ;  et  tamen  ista  miracula  non  consideratione  comprehensa  sunt,  sed 
assiduitate  viluerunt.     Cf.  Gregory  the  Great,  Moral,  vi.  1 5. 

*  All  this  is  brought  out  in  a  very  instructive  discussion  on  the  miracle, 
which  finds  place  in  Augustine's  great  dogmatic  work,  De  Tritiit.  iii.  5, 
and  extends  to  the  chapters  upon  either  side,  being  the  largest  statement 
of  his  views  upon  the  subject  which  anywhere  finds  place  in  his  works  : 
Quis  attrahit  humorem  per  radicem  vitis  ad  botrum  et  vinum  facit,  nisi 
Deus,  qui  et  homine  plantante  et  rigante  incrementum  dat  ?  Sed  cum 
ad  nutum  Domini  aqua  in  vinum  inusitata  celeritate  conversa  est,  etiam 
stultis  fatentibus,  vis  divina  declarata  est.  Quis  arbusta  fronde  et  flore 
vestit  solemniter,  nisi  Deus  ?     Verum  cum  floruit  virga  sacerdotis  Aaron, 

collocuta  est  quodam  modo  cum  dubitante  humanitate  diviniias 

Cum  fiunt  ilia  continuato  quasi  quodam  fluvio  labentium  manantiumque 
rerum,  et  ex  occulto  in  promptum,  atque  ex  prompto  in  occultum,  usitato 
Itinere  transeuntium,  naturalia  dicuntur  :  cum  vero  admoneudis  homini- 
bus  inusitata  mutabilitate  ingeruntur,  magnalia  nominantur. 


AND  NATURE.  1% 

belongs,  then,  to  the  essence  of  the  miracle;  powers  of 
God  other  than  those  which  have  always  been  working ; 
such,  indeed,  as  most  seldom  or  never  have  been  working 
before.  The  unresting  activity  of  God,  which  at  other 
times  hides  and  conceals  itself  behind  the  veil  of  what  we 
term  natural  laws,  does  in  the  miracle  unveil  itself;  it 
steps  out  from  its  concealment,  and  the  hand  which  works 
is  laid  bare.  Beside  and  beyond  '  the  ordinary  operations 
of  nature,  higher  powers  (higher,  not  as  coming  from  a 
higher  source,  but  as  bearing  upon  higher  ends)  intrude 
and  make  themselves  felt  even  at  the  very  springs  and 
sources  of  her  power. 

While  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  miracle  that  it 
should  be  thus  '  a  new  thing,'  it  is  not  with  this  denied 
that  the  natural  itself  may  become  miraculous  to  us  by 
the  way  in  which  it  is  timed,  by  the  ends  which  it  is  made 
to  serve.  It  is  indeed  true  that  aught  which  is  perfectly 
explicable  from  the  course  of  nature  and  history  is  assur- 
edly no  miracle  in  the  most  proper  sense  of  the  word.  At 
the  same  time  the  finger  of  God  may  be  so  plainly  dis- 
cernible in  it,  there  may  be  in  it  so  remarkable  a  converg- 
ence of  many  unconnected  causes  to  a  single  end,  it  may  so 
meet  a  crisis  in  the  lives  of  men,  or  in  the  onward  march 
of  the  kingdom  of  God,  may  stand  in  such  noticeable 
relation  with  God's  great  work  of  redemption,  that  even 
while  it  is  plainly  explicable  by  natural  causes,  while  there 
were  such,  perfectly  adequate  to  produce  the  effects,  we 
yet  may  be  entirely  justified  in  terming  it  a  miracle,  a 
providential,  although  not  an  absolute,  miracle.  Abso- 
lute it  cannot  be  called,  since  there  were  known  causes 
perfectly  capable  of  bringing  it  about,  and,  these  existing, 
it  would  be  superstition  to  betake  ourselves  to  others,  or 
to  seek  to  disconnect  it  from  these.  Yet  the  natural 
may  in  a  manner  lift  itself  up  into  the  miraculous,  by  the 

*  Not,  as  we  shall  see  the  greatest  tlieologians  have  always  earnestly 
contended,  contra  naturam,  but  prceter  naturam  and  supra  naturam. 


14  THE  MIRACLES 

moment  at  wliicli  it  falls  out,  by  the  purposes  wliich.  it 
is  made  to  fulfil.  It  is  a  subjective  wonder,  a  wonder  for 
us,  though  not  an  objective,  not  a  wonder  in  itself. 

Thus  many  of  the  plagues  of  Egypt  were  the  natural 
plagues  of  the  land,' — these,  it  is  true,  raised  and  quick- 
ened into  far  direr  than  their  usual  activity.  In  itself  it 
was  nothing  miraculous  that  grievous  swarms  of  flies 
should  infest  the  houses  of  the  Egyptians,  or  that  flights 
of  locusts  should  spoil  their  fields,  or  that  a  murrain  should 
destroy  their  cattle.  None  of  these  visitations  were,  or 
are,  unknown  in  that  land ;  but  the  intensity  of  all  these 
plagues,  the  dread  succession  in  which  they  followed  on 
one  another,  their  connexion  with  the  word  of  Moses  which 
went  before,  with  Pharaoh's  trial  which  was  proceeding, 
with  Israel's  deliverance  which  they  helped  onward,  the 
order  of  their  coming  and  going,  all  these  entirely  justify 
us  in  calling  them  *  the  signs  and  wonders  of  Egypt,'  even 
as  such  is  evermore  the  scriptural  language  about  them 
(Deut.  iv.  34;  Ps.  Ixxviii.  43;  Acts  vii.  36).  It  is  no 
absolute  miracle  that  a  coin  should  be  found  in  a  fish's 
mouth  (Matt.  xvii.  27),  or  that  a  lion  should  meet  a  man 
and  slay  him  (i  Kin.  xiii.  24),  or  that  a  thunderstorm 
should  happen  at  an  unusual  period  of  the  year  (i  Sam. 
xii.  16-19) ;  ^^^  yst  these  circumstances  may  be  so  timed 
for  strengthening  faith,  for  punishing  disobedience,  for 
awakening  repentance,  they  may  serve  such  high  purposes 
in  God's  moral  government,  that  we  at  once  range  them 
in  the  catalogue  of  miracles,  without  seeking  to  make  an 
anxious  discrimination  between  the  miracle  absolute  and 
providential.*     Especially  have  they  a  right  to  their  place 

^  See  Hengstenberg,  Die  Biicher  Moses  itud  Acgypteii,  pp.  93-129. 

*  The  attempt  to  exhaust  the  histoi-y  of  our  Lord's  life  of  miracles  by 
the  assumption  of  wonderful  fortuitous  coincidences  is  singularly  self- 
defeating.  These  might  pass  once  or  twice ;  but  that  such  happy  chances 
should  on  every  occasion  recur,  what  is  this  for  one  who  knows  even  but 
a  little  of  the  theory  of  probabilities  ?  not  the  delivering  the  history  of 
its  marvellous  element,  but  the  exchanging  of  one  set  of  marvels  for 
another.    If  it  be  urged  that  this  was  not  mere  hazard,  what  manner  of 


AND  NATURE.  15 

among  these,  when  (as  in  each  of  the  instances  alluded  to 
above)  the  final  event  is  a  sealing  of  a  foregoing  word  from 
the  Lord ;  for  so,  as  prophecy,  as  miracles  of  his  foreknow- 
ledge, thej  claim  that  place,  even  if  not  as  miracles  of  his 
fower.  It  is  true,  of  course,  of  these  even  more  than  of 
any  other,  that  they  exist  only  for  the  religious  mind, 
for  the  man  who  believes  that  God  rules,  and  not  merely 
in  power,  but  in  wisdom,  in  righteousness,  and  in  love ; 
for  him  they  will  be  eminently  signs,  signs  of  a  present 
working  God.  In  the  case  of  the  more  absolute  miracle 
it  will  be  sometimes  possible  to  extort  from  the  ungodly, 
as  of  old  from  the  magicians  of  Egypt,  the  unwUling  con- 
fession, *This  is  the  finger  of  God'  (Exod.  viii.  19) ;  but 
in  the  case  of  these  this  will  be  well  nigh  impossible; 
since  there  is  always  the  natural  solution  in  which  they 
may  take  refuge,  beyond  which  they  will  refuse,  and 
beyond  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  compel  them,  to 
proceed. 

But  while  the  miracle  is  not  thus  nature,  so  neither  is  it 
against  nature.  That  language,  however  common,  is  wholly 
unsatisfactory,  which  speaks  of  these  wonderful  works  of 
God  as  violations  of  a  natural  law.  Beyovd  nature,  beyond 
and  ahove  the  nature  which  we  know,  they  are,  but  not 
contrary  to  it.^  Nor  let  it  be  said  that  this  distinction 
is  an  idle  one ;  so  far  from  being  idle,  Spinoza's  whole 

person  then  must  we  conclude  Him  to  be,  whom  nature  was  always  thas 
at  such  pains  to  serve  and  to  seal  ? 

^  It  is  impossible  to  accept  the  assistance  which  Perrone,  the  most  in- 
3uential  dogmatic  writer  in  the  modern  Roman  Catholic  Church,  ofi'ers 
us  here.  He,  in  a  nominalism  pushed  to  a  most  extravagant  excess,  de- 
nies that  the  miracle  is  or  can  be  either  against  or  above  the  laws  of 
nature,  seeing  that  in  fact  there  are  no  such  laws  for  it  to  violate  or  to 
transcend,  no  working  of  God  in  the  external  world  according  to  any 
fixed  and  established  rules  (Preslect.  Theol.  vol.  i.  p.  47) :  Deus  non 
regit  genera  vel  species,  quse  non  sunt  nisi  idete  abstractfe,  sed  regit  indi- 
vidua,  quse  sola  realia  sunt,  neque  regit  legibus  universalibus,  quae 
pariter  non  sunt  nisi  in  conceptu  nostro,  sed  regit  voluntate  peculiar! 
individua  singula.  Extremes  meet :  he  too,  denying  any  law,  has  made 
the  miracle  as  impossible  as  those  who  affirm  the  law  to  be  absolutely 
immutable. 


l6  THE  MIRACLES 

assault  ■upon  tlie  miracles  (not  his  real  objections,  for  they 
lie  mucli  deeper,  but  bis  assault ')  turns,  as  we  shall  see, 
upon  the  advantage  which  he  has  known  how  to  take  of 
this  faulty  statement  of  the  truth ;  and,  when  that  has 
been  rightly  stated,  becomes  at  once  beside  the  mark. 
The  miracle  is  not  thus  unnatural ;  nor  could  it  be  such ; 
since  the  unnatural,  the  contrary  to  order,  is  of  itself  the 
ungodly,  and  can  in  no  way  therefore  be  affirmed  of  a 
divine  work,  such  as  that  with  which  we  have  to  do.  The 
very  idea  of  the  world,  as  more  than  one  name  which  it 
bears  testifies,  is  that  of  an  order  j  that,  therefore,  which 
comes  in  to  enable  it  to  realize  this  idea  which  it  has  lost, 
will  scarcely  itself  be  a  disorder.  So  far  from  this,  the 
true  miracle  is  a  higher  and  a  purer  nature,  coming  down 
out  of  the  world  of  untroubled  harmonies  into  this  world 
of  ours,  which  so  many  discords  have  jarred  and  disturbed, 
and  bringing  this  back  again,  though  it  be  but  for  one 
mysterious  prophetic  moment,  into  harmony  with  that 
higher.'*  The  healing  of  the  sick  can  in  no  way  be  termed 
against  nature,  seeing  that  the  sickness  which  was  healed 
was  against  the  true  nature  of  man,  that  it  is  sickness 
which  is  abnormal,  and  not  health.  The  healing  is  the 
restoration  of  the  primitive  order.  We  should  see  in  the 
miracle  not  the  infraction  of  a  law,  but  the  neutralizing  of 
a  lower  law,  the  suspension  of  it  for  a  time  by  a  higher. 

*  Trad.  Theol.  Pol.  vi.  Be  Miraculis. 

2  Augustine  (Cow.  Faust.  Ivi.  3)  :  Contra  naturam  non  incongrue  dici- 
mua  aliquid  Deum  facere,  quod  facit  contra  id  quod  novimus  in  natura. 
Hanc  enim  etiam  appellamus  naturam,  cognitum  nobis  cursum  solitumque 
naturae,  contra  quern  cum  Deus  aliquid  facit,  magnalia  Tel  niirabilia 
nominantur.  Contra  illam  vero  summam  naturae  legem  a  notitia  remo- 
tam  sive  impiorum  sive  adhuc  infirmorum,  tarn  Deus  nullo  modo  fticit 
quam  contra  seipsum  non  facit.  Cf.  xxvi.  3 :  Deus  creator  et  conditor 
omnium  naturarum  nihil  contra  naturam  facit,  quia  id  est  naturale  cuique 
rei  quod  facit  a  quo  est  omnis  modus,  numerus,  et  ordo  naturae.  Cf. 
xxix.  2 ;  and  De  Civ.  Dei,  xxi.  8.  The  speculations  of  the  great  thinkers 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  on  the  subject  of  miracles,  and  especially  on 
this  part  of  the  subject,  are  well  brought  together  by  Neaader  (Kirch. 
Gesch.  vol.  V.  pp.  910-925). 


AND  NATURE.  17 

Of  this  abundant  analogous  examples  are  evermore  going 
forward  before  our  eyes.  Continually  we  behold  in  the 
world  around  us  lower  laws  held  in  restraint  by  higher, 
mechanic  by  dynamic,  chemical  by  vital,  physical  by 
moral ;  yet  we  do  not  say,  when  the  lower  thus  gives  place 
in  favour  of  the  higher,  that  there  was  any  violation  of 
law,  or  that  anything  contrary  to  nature  came  to  pass ;  ^ 
rather  we  acknowledge  the  law  of  a  greater  freedom  swal- 
lowing up  the  law  of  a  lesser. 

When  Spinoza  affirmed  that  nothing  can  happen  in 
nature  which  opposes  its  universal  laws,  he  acutely  saw 
that  even  then  he  had  not  excluded  the  miracle,  and  there- 
fore, to  clench  the  exclusion,  added — *  or  which  does  not 
follow  from  the  same  laws.'  But  all  which  experience  can 
teach  us  is,  that  these  powers  which  are  working  in  our 
v/orld  will  not  reach  to  these  effects.  Whence  dare  we  to 
conclude,  that  because  none  which  we  know  will  bring 
them  about,  so  none  exist  which  will  do  so  ?  They  exceed 
the  laws  of  our  nature,  but  it  does  not  therefore  follow 
that  they  exceed  the  laws  of  all  nature.  K  the  animals 
were  capable  of  a  reflective  act,  man  would  appear  a 
miracle  to  them,  as  the  Angels  do  to  us,  and  as  the 
animals  would  themselves  appear  to  a  lower  circle  of 
organic  life.  The  comet  is  a  miracle  as  regards  our  solar 
system ;  that  is,  it  does  not  own  the  laws  of  our  system, 
neither  do  those  laws  explain  it.  Yet  is  there  a  higher 
and  wider  law  of  the  heavens,  whether  fully  discovered  or 
not,  in  which  its  motions  are  included  as  surely  as  those 
of  the  planets  which  stand  in  immediate  relation  to  our 
sun.  When  I  lift  my  arm,  the  law  of  gravitation  is  not, 
as  far  as  my  arm  is  concerned,  denied  or  annihilated ;  it 
exists  as  much  as  ever,  but  is  held  in  suspense  by  the 
higher  law  of  my  will.  The  chemical  laws  which  would 
bring  about  decay  in  animal  substances  still  subsist,  even 

^  See  a  very  interesting  discussion  upon  this  subject  in  Augustine,  De 
Gen,  ad  Lit.  vi.  14.-18. 


l8  THE  MIRACLES 

■when  they  are  restrained  and  hindered  by  the  salt  which 
keeps  those  substances  from  corruption;  The  law  of  sin 
in  a  regenerate  man  is  held  in  continual  check  by  the  law 
of  the  spu'it  of  life ;  yet  is  it  in  his  members  still,  not  in- 
deed working,  for  a  mightier  law  has  stepped  in  and  now 
holds  it  in  abeyance,  but  still  there,  and  ready  to  work, 
did  that  higher  law  cease  from  its  more  effectual  operation. 
What  in  each  of  these  cases  is  wi'ought  may  be  against 
one  particular  law,  that  law  being  contemplated  in  its 
isolation,  and  rent  away  from  the  complex  of  laws,  whereof 
it  forms  only  a  part.  But  no  law  does  stand  thus  alone, 
and  it  is  not  against,  but  rather  in  entire  harmony  with, 
the  system  of  laws ;  for  the  law  of  those  laws  is,  that 
where  powers  come  into  conflict,  the  weaker  shall  give 
place  to  the  stronger,  the  lower  to  the  higher.^  In  the 
miracle,  this  world  of  ours  is  drawn  into  and  within  a 
higher  order  of  things ;  laws  are  then  working  in  it,  which 
are  not  the  laws  of  its  fallen  condition,  but  laws  of 
mightier  range  and  higher  perfection ;  and  as  such  they 
claim  to  make  themselves  felt;  they  assert  the  preemi- 
nence and  predominance  which  are  rightly  their  own.'^     A 

^  In  remarkable  words  the  author  of  the  Wisdom  of  SoIojno?i  (x  Ix.  ) 
describes  how  at  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  all  nature  was  in  its  kind 
moulded  and  fashioned  anew  (»)  Krimg  ndXiv  avw^iv  ^uru-oiir..),  that  it 
might  serve  God's  purposes  for  the  deliverance  of  his  people,  and  punish- 
ment of  his  enemies  (cf.  xi.  i6,  17);  and  Sedulius  (Carm.  Pasch.  i.  85): 

Subditur  omnis 

Imperils  natura  tuis ;  rituque  soluto 

Transit  in  adversas  jussu  dominante  figuras. 

*  Martensen  (Christ.  Dogmatik,  §  17)  :  Der  Einheitspunkt  des  Natiir- 

lichen  und  Uebernatiirlichen   liegt  in  der  teleologischen  Bestimmung 

der  Natur  fiir  das  Reich  Gottes,  und  in  der  daniit  gegebenen  Empfang- 

lichkeit    und    Bildungsfahigkeit    der    Natur    fiir    die    iibernatiirliche 

Schopferthatigkeit.     The  whole  passage  is  admirable,  but  too  long  to 

quote.     On  the  manner  in  which  God  in  the  old  creation  did  not  exclude 

the  possibilities  of  the  new,  but  rather  left  room  for  them,  Augustine  has 

in  more  places  than  one  a  very  interesting  discussion ;  here,  as  in  such  a 

multitude  of  other  instances,  anticipating  so  much  of  the  speculation  of 

the  later  world.     Thus  De  Gen.  ad  Lit.  x.  17:  Elementa  mundi  hujus 

corporei  habent  definitam  vim  qualitatemque  suam,  quid  unumquodque 

valeftt  vel  non  valeat,  quid  de  quo  fieri  possit  vel  non  possit.     Super 


AND  NATURE.  19 

familiar  illustration  borrowed  from  our  own  cliurch-system 
of  feasts  and  fasts  may  make  this  clearer.  It  is  tlie  rule 
here,  that  if  the  festival  of  the  Nativity  fall  on  a  day  which 
was  designated  in  the  ordinary  calendar  for  a  fast,  the 
former  shall  displace  the  latter,  and  the  da-y  shall  be  ob- 
served as  a  festival.  Shall  we  therefore  say  that  the 
Church  has  awkwardly  contrived  two  systems  which  at  this 
point  may,  and  sometimes  do,  come  into  collision  with  one 
another  ?  and  not  rather  admire  her  more  complex  law, 
and  note  how  in  the  very  concurrence  of  the  two,  with  the 
displacement  of  the  poorer  by  the  richer,  she  brings  out 
her  sense  that  holy  joy  is  a  loftier  thing  even  than  holy 
sorrow,  and  shall  at  last  swallow  it  up  altogether  ?  ^ 

hunc  autem  motnm  cursumque  rerum  naturalem,  potestas  Creatoris 
habet  apud  se  posse  de  his  omnibus  facere  aliud  quaiu  eorum  quasi 
eeminales  rationes  habent,  non  tarnen  id  quod  non  in  eis  posuit,  ut  de  his 
fieri  vel  ab  ipso  possit.  Neque  eniin  potentia  temeraria  sed  sapientia3 
virtute  omnipotens  est ;  et  hoc  de  unaquaque  re  ia  tempore  suo  facit, 
quod  ante  in  ea  fecit  ut  possit.  Alius  ergo  est  rerum  modus,  quo  ilia 
herba  sic  germinat,  ilia  sic;  ilia  setas  parit,  ilia  non  parit;  homo  loqui 
potest,  pecus  non  potest.  Horum  et  talium  modorum  rationes  non 
tantum  in  Deo  sunt,  sed  ab  illo  etiam  rebus  creatis  inditte  atque  con- 
creatse.  Ut  autem  lignum  de  terra  excisum,  aridum,  perpolitum,  sine  radice 
ulla,  sine  terra  et  aqua  repente  floreat  et  fructum  gignat,  ut  per  juventam 
eterilis  fcemina  in  senecta  pariat,  ut  asina  loquatur,  et  si  quid  ejusmodi 
est,  dedit  quidem  naturis  quas  creavit  ut  ex  eis  et  haec  fieri  possent, 
(nequo  enim  ex  eis  vel  ille  faceret  quod  ex  eis  fieri  non  posse  ipse 
praefigeret,  quoniam  se  ipso  non  est  nee  ipse  potentior,)  verumtamen 
alio  modo  dedit,  ut  non  hsec  haberent  in  motu  naturali,  sed  in  eo  quo 
ita  creata  essent,  ut  eorum  natura  Toluntati  potentiori  amplius  sub- 
jaceret. 

^  Thus  Aquinas,  whose  greatness  and  depth  upon  the  subject  of 
miracles  I  well  remember  hearing  Coleridge  exalt,  and  painfully  contrast 
with  the  modern  theology  on  the  same  subject  {Sum.  Tfieol.  pars  i. 
qu.  105,  art.  6) :  A  qualibet  causa  derivatur  aliquis  ordo  in  suos  effectus, 
cum  quselibet  causa  habeat  rationem  principii.  Et  ideo  secundum 
multiplication  em  causarum  multiplicantur  et  ordiues,  quorum  unus 
continetur  sub  altero,  sicut  et  causa  continetur  sub  causa.  Unde  causa 
superior  non  continetur  sub  ordine  causae  inferioris,  sed  e  converso. 
Cujus  exemplum  apparet  in  rebus  humanis.  Nam  ex  patrefamilias 
dependet  ordo  domus,  qui  continetur  sub  ordine  civitatis,  qui  procedit  a 
civitatis  rectore :  cum  et  hie  contineatur  sub  ordine  regis,  a  quo  totum 
regnum  ordinatur.  Si  ergo  ordo  rerum  consideretur  prout  dependet  a 
prima  causa,  sic  contra  rerum  ordinem  Deus  facere  non  potest.  Si  enim 
Eic  faceret,  faceret  contra  suam  prsescientiam  aut  voluntatem  aut  bonita- 


20  THE  MIRACLES 

It  is  with  these  wonders  which  have  been,  exactly  as  it 
will  be  with  those  wonders  which  we  look  for  in  regard  of 
our  own  mortal  bodies,  and  this  physical  universe.  We  do 
not  speak  of  these  changes  which  are  in  store  for  this  and 
those,  as  violations  of  law.  We  should  not  speak  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body  as  something  contrary  to  nature ; 
as  unnatural ;  yet  no  power  now  working  upon  our  bodies 
could  bring  it  about ;  it  must  be  wrought  by  some  power 
not  yet  displayed,  which  God  has  kept  in  reserve.  So,  too, 
the  mighty  transformation  which  is  in  store  for  the  out- 
ward world,  out  of  which  it  shall  come  forth  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth,  *the  regeneration '  of  Matt.  xix.  i8,  far 
exceeds  any  energies  now  working  in  the  world,  to  bring 
it  to  pass  (however  there  may  be  predispositions  for  it  now, 
starting  points  from  which  it  will  proceed) ;  yet  it  so  be- 
longs to  the  true  idea  of  the  world,  now  so  imperfectly 
realized,  that  when  it  does  take  place,  it  will  be  felt  to  be 
the  truest  nature,  which  only  then  at  length  shall  have 
come  perfectly  to  the  birth.  The  miracles  of  earth,  as 
Jean  Paul  has  said,  are  the  laws  of  heaven. 

The  miracles,  then,  not  being  against  nature,  however 
they  may  be  beside  and  beyond  it,  are  in  no  respect  slights 
cast  upon  its  ordinary  and  every-day  workings;  but  rather, 
when  contemplated  aright,  are  an  honouring  of  these,  in 
the  witness  which  they  render  to  the  source  from  which 
these  also  originally  proceed.  For  Christ,  healing  a  sick 
man  with  his  word,  is  in  fact  claiming  in  this  to  be  the 
lord  and  author  of  all  the  healing  powers  which  have  ever 
exerted  their  beneficent  influence  on  the  bodies  of  men, 
and  saying,  'I  will  prove  this  fact,  which  you  are  ever 

tem.  Si  vero  consideretur  rerum  ordo,  prout  dependet  a  qualibet  secun- 
darum  causarum,  sic  Deus  potest  facere  prater  ordinem  rerum ;  quia 
ordini  secundarum  causarum  ipse  non  est  subj  actus ;  sed  talis  ordo  ei 
subjicitur,  quasi  ab  eo  procedens,  uon  per  necessitatem  naturae,  sed  per 
arbitrium  voluntatis  ;  potuisset  enim  et  alium  ordinem  rerum  instituere. 
And  after  a  long  discussion  in  bis  work  Con.  Gentiles,  be  thus  defines 
the  miracles  (ii,  loz)  :  Ilia  igitur  propria  niiracula  dicenda  sunt,  quae 
divinitus  fiunt  prseter  ordinem  communiter  observatum  in  rebus. 


AND  NATURE.  21 

losing  sight  of,  that  in  Me  the  fontal  power  which  goes 
forth  in  a  thousand  gradual  cures  resides,  by  this  time 
only  speaking  a  word,  and  bringing  back  a  man  unto 
perfect  health ; ' — not  thus  cutting  off  those  other  and 
more  gradual  healings  from  his  person,  but  truly  linking 
them  to  it.'  So  again  when  He  multiplies  the  bread,  when 
He  changes  the  water  into  wine,  what  does  He  but  say, 
*  It  is  I  and  no  other  who,  by  the  sunshine  and  the  shower, 
by  the  seed-time  and  the  harvest,  give  food  for  the  use  of 
man;  and  you  shall  learn  this,  which  you  are  evermore 
unthankfuUy  forgetting,  by  witnessing  for  once  or  for 
twice,  or,  if  not  actually  witnessing,  yet  having  it  re- 
hearsed in  your  ears  for  ever,  how  the  essences  of  things 
are  mine,  how  the  bread  grows  in  my  hands,  how  the 
water,  not  drawn  up  into  the  vine,  nor  slowly  transmuted 
into  the  juices  of  the  grape,  nor  from  thence  exprest  in 
the  vat,  but  simply  at  my  bidding,  changes  into  wine.  The 
children  of  this  world  "  sacrifice  unto  their  net,  and  bum 
incense  to  their  drag,"  but  it  is  I  who,  giving  you  m  a  mo- 
ment the  draught  of  fishes  which  you  had  yourselves  long 
laboured  for  in  vain,  will  remind  you  who  guides  them 
through  the  ocean  paths,  and  suffers  you  either  to  toil  long 
and  to  take  nothing,  or  crowns  your  labours  with  a  rich 
and  unexpected  harvest  of  the  sea.' — Even  the  single 
miracle  which  wears  an  aspect  of  severity,  that  of  the 
withered  fig-tree,  speaks  the  same  language,  for  in  that 
the  same  gracious  Lord  is  declaring,  *  These  scourges  of 
mine,  wherewith  I  punish  your  sins,  and  summon  you  to 
repentance,  continually  miss  their  purpose  altogether,  or 
need  to  be  repeated  again  and  again;  and  this  mainly 

'  Bernard  Connor's  Evancielium  Medici,  seu  3Iedicina  Mysticaj  London, 
1697,  awakened  some  attention  at  the  time  of  its  publication,  and  drew 
down  many  suspicions  of  infidelity  on  its  author  (see  the  Biographie 
Universelle  under  his  name).  I  have  not  mastered  the  book,  as  it  seemed 
hardly  worth  while ;  but  oji  a  slight  acquaintance,  my  impression  is  that 
these  charges  against  the  author  are  without  any  ground.  The  book 
bears  on  this  present  part  of  our  subject. 


22  THE  MIRACLES  AND  NATURE. 

because  you  see  in  tlieni  only  the  evil  accidents  of  a  blind 
nature  ;  but  I  will  show  you  that  it  is  I  and  no  other  who 
smite  the  earth  with  a  curse,  who  both  can  and  do  send 
these  strokes  for  the  punishing  of  the  sins  of  men.' 

And  we  can  quite  x^erceive  how  all  this  should  have  been 
necessary.'  For  if  in  one  sense  the  orderly  workings  of 
nature  reveal  the  glory  of  God  (Ps.  xix.  i-6),  in  another 
they  may  hide  that  glory  from  our  eyes  ;  if  they  ought  to 
make  us  continually  to  remember  Him,  yet  there  is  danger 
that  they  lead  us  to  forget  Him,  until  this  world  around 
us  shall  prove — not  a  translucent  medium,  through  which 
we  behold  Him,  but  a  thick  impenetrable  curtain,  con- 
cealing Him  wholly  from  our  sight.  *  There  is  in  every 
miracle,'  says  Donne,  *  a  silent  chiding  of  the  world,  and 
a  tacit  reprehension  of  them  who  require,  or  who  need, 
miracles.'  Did  they  serve  no  other  purpose  than  this, 
namely  to  testify  the  liberty  of  God,  and  to  affirm  his 
will,  which,  however  it  habitually  shows  itself  in  nature,  is 
yet  more  than  and  above  nature,  were  it  only  to  break  a  link 
in  that  chain  of  cause  and  effect,  which  else  we  should 
come  to  regard  as  itself  God,  as  the  iron  chain  of  an  inex- 
orable necessity,  binding  heaven  no  less  than  earth,  they 
would  serve  a  great  purpose,  they  would  not  have  been 
wrought  in  vain.  But  there  are  other  purposes  than  these, 
and  purposes  yet  more  nearly  bearing  on  the  salvation  of 
men,  to  which  they  serve,  and  to  the  consideration  of  these 
we  have  now  arrived.* 

*  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  ex.  4) :  [Deus]  reservans  opportune  inusitata 
prodigia,  quae  infirmitas  hominis  novitati  intenta  meminerit,  cum  siut 
ejus  miracula  quotidiana  majora.  Tot  per  universam  terrain  arbores  creat, 
et  nemo  miratur ;  arefecit  verbo  unam,  et  stupefacta  sunt  corda  morta- 
lium.  .  .  .  Hoc  enim  niiraculum  maxime  adtentis  cordibus  inhserebit, 
quod  assiduitas  non  vilefecerit. 

*  J.  MiiUer  {De  Mirac.  J.  C.  Nat.  et  Necess.  par.  i.  p.  43) :  Etiamsi 
nullus  alius  miraculorum  esset  usus,  nisi  ut  absolutam  illam  diAinaa 
voluntatis  libertatem  demonstrent,  humanamque  anogantiam,  immodicte 
legis  naturalis  admirationi  junctam,  compescant,  miracula  baud  temere 
sssent  edita.  • 


cnAPTEE  in. 

THE  AUTHORITY  OF  MIRACLES. 

IS  tlie  miracle  to  command  absolutely,  and  witliout  fur- 
ther question,  the  obedience  of  those  in  whose  sight  it 
is  done,  or  to  whom  it  comes  as  an  adequately  attested 
fact,  so  that  the  doer  and  the  doctrine,  without  further 
debate,  shall  be  accepted  as  from  God  ?  It  cannot  be  so, 
for  side  by  side  with  the  miracles  which  serve  for  the 
furthering  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  runs  another  line  of 
wonders,  the  counterworkings  of  him,  who  is  ever  the  ape 
of  the  Most  High;  who  has  stiU  his  caricatures  of  the 
holiest ;  and  who  knows  that  in  no  way  can  he  so  realize 
his  character  of  Satan  or  '  the  Hinderer,'  as  by  offering 
that  which  shall  either  be  accepted  instead  of  the  true,  or, 
being  discovered  to  be  false,  shall  bring  the  true  into  like 
discredit  with  itself.  For  that  Scripture  attributes  real 
wonders  to  him,  though  miracles  wrought  in  a  sphere 
rigidly  defined  and  shut  in  by  the  power  of  God,  there 
seems  to  me  no  manner  of  doubt.  His  wonders  are  'lying' 
(2  Thess.  ii.  9),  not  because  in  themselves  mere  illusions 
and  jugglery,  but  because  they  are  wrought  to  support  the 
kingdom  of  lies.'     The  Egyptian  magicians,  his  servants, 

'  Gerhard  {Loc.  Theoll.  loc.  xxiii.  11,  274):  Antichristi  miracula  dicun- 
tur  mendacia,  ....  non  tarn  ratione  forma,  quasi  omnia  futura  sint 
falsa  et  adparentia  duntaxat,  quam  ratione^nts,  quia  scilicet  ad  confirma- 
tion era  mendaeii  erunt  directa.  Chrysostom,  who  explains  the  passage 
in  the  other  way,  that  they  are  'lying'  quoad  formam  (^wc'iv  nXjj^ff, 
eXXd  Trpot  a-;:arriv  tu  -KavTo),  yet  Suggests  the  correcter  explanation, 


24  THE  AUTHORITY  OF 

stood  in  relation  to  a  spiritual  kingdom  as  trulj  as  did 
Moses  and  Aaron.  Only  when  we  recognize  tliis,  does  tlie 
conflict  between  those  and  these  come  out  in  its  true  sig- 
nificance. It  loses  this  nearly  or  altogether,  if  we  con- 
template their  wonders  as  mere  conjurors'  tricks,  dexterous 
sleights  of  hand,  with  which  they  imposed  upon  Pharaoh 
and  his  servants ;  making  believe,  and  no  more,  that  their 
rods  also  changed  into  serpents  (Exod.  vii.  ii,  12),  that 
they  also  changed  water  into  blood  (Exod.  vii.  22).  Eather 
was  this  a  conflict  not  merely  between  the  might  of 
Egypt's  king  and  the  power  of  God ;  but  the  gods  of  Egypt, 
the  spiritual  powers  of  wickedness  which  underlay,  and 
were  the  informing  soul  of,  that  dark  and  evil  kingdom, 
were  in  conflict  with  the  God  of  Israel.  In  this  conflict, 
it  is  true,  their  nothingness  very  soon  was  apparent ;  their 
resources  came  very  soon  to  an  end ;  but  yet  most  truly 
the  two  unseen  kingdoms  of  light  and  darkness  did  then 
in  presence  of  Pharaoh  do  open  battle,  each  seeking  to  win 
the  king  for  itself,  and  to  draw  him  into  its  own  element.' 

ri  dii^evafi'tvoic,  t)  ilg  ^^fu^og  dyovai.  Augustine  (^De  Civ.  Dei,  XX.  19)  does 
not  absolutely  determine  for  either:  Solet  ambigi,  utrum  propterea 
dicta  eint  signa  et  prodigia  mendacii,  quoniam  mortales  sensus  per 
phantasmata  decepturus  sit  [Antichristus]  ;  ut  quod  non  faciat,  facere 
videatur:  an  quia  ilia  ipsa,  etiamsi  erunt  vera  prodigia,  ad  mendacium 
pertrahent  credituros  non  ea  potuisse,  nisi  divinitus  fieri,  virtutem  diaboli 
nescientes.  According  to  Aquinas  they  will  only  be  relative  wonders 
(^Stwim.  Theol,  p.  1*,  qu.  114,  art.  4.)  :  Dsemones  possunt  facere  miracula, 
qufe  scilicet  homines  mirantur,  in  quantum  eorum  facultatem  et  cogni- 
tionem  excedunt.  Nam  et  unus  homo  in  quantum  facit  aliquid  quod  est 
eupra  facultatem  et  cognitionem  alterius,  ducit  alium  in  admirationem  sui 
operis,  et  quodam  modo  miraculum  videatur operari.  And  again,  qu.  no, 
art.  4 :  Miraculum  proprie  dicitur,  cum  aliquid  fit  prseter  ordinem  natu- 
rae. Sed  non  sufEcit  ad  rationem  miraculi,  si  quid  fiat  praeter  ordinem 
naturae  alicujus  particularis ;  quia  sic,  cum  aliquis  projicit  lapidem  sur- 
sum,  miraculum  faceret,  cum  hoc  fit  praeter  ordinem  naturae  lapidis. 
Ex  hoc  ergo  aliquid  dicitur  miraculum,  quod  fit  praeter  ordinem  totius 
naturae  creatae.     Hoc  autem  non  potest  facere  nisi  Deus. 

*  The  principal  argument  against  this,  is  the  fact  that  inexplicable 
feats  of  exactly  like  kinds  are  done  by  the  modern  Egyptian  charmers  j 
Bome  are  recounted  in  the  great  French  work  upon  Egypt,  and  attested  by 
keen  and  sharp-sighted  observers.  But  taking  into  consideration  all 
which  we  know  about  these  magicians  that  they  apparently  have  always 


MIRACLES.  25 

Else,  unless  it  had  been  such  a  conflict  as  this^  what 
meaning  would  such  passages  have  as  that  in  Moses'  Song, 
*  Who  is  like  unto  thee,  0  Lord,  among  the  gods  '  (Exod. 
XV.  11)?  or  that  earlier,  ^Against  all  the  gods  of  Eg}^t  I 
will  execute  judgment;  I  am  the  Lord'  (Exod.  xii.  12; 
cf.  Numb,  xxxiii.  4).  As  it  was  then,  so  probably  was  it 
again  at  the  Incarnation,  for  Satan's  open  encounter  of 
our  Lord  in  the  wilderness  was  but  one  form  of  his  mani- 
fold opposition ;  and  we  have  a  hint  of  a  resistance  similar 
to  that  of  the  Egyptian  magicians  in  the  '  withstanding ' 
of  Paul  ascribed  to  Elymas  (Acts  xiii.  8 ;  cf.  2  Tim.  iii.  8).' 
But  whether  at  that  time  it  was  so,  or  not,  so  will  it  be 
certainly  at  the  end  of  the  world  (Matt.  xxiv.  24 ;  2  Thess. 
ii.  9  ;  Eev.  xiii.  13).  Thus  it  seems  that  at  each  great 
crisis  and  epoch  of  the  kingdom,  the  struggle  between  the 
light  and  the  darkness,  which  has  ever  been  going  forward, 
comes  out  into  visible  manifestation. 

Yet,  while  the  works  of  Antichrist  and  his  organs  are 
not  mere  tricks  and  juggleries,  neither  are  they  miracles 
in  the  very  highest  sense  of  the  word ;  they  only  in  part 
partake  of  the  essential  elements  of  the  miracle.'     This 

constituted  an  hereditary  guild,  that  the  charmer  throws  himself  into  an 
ecstatic  state,  the  question  remains,  how  far  there  may  not  be  here  a 
wreck  and  surviving  fragment  of  a  mightier  system,  how  far  the  charmers 
do  not  even  now,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  bring  themselves  into 
relation  with  those  evil  powers,  which  more  or  less  remotely  do  at  the 
last  underlie  every  form  of  heathen  superstition.  On  this  subject  see 
Hengstenberg  {Die  JBucher  3Iose^s  tmd  Aegypten,  pp.  97-103).  I  have 
had  no  opportimity  of  consulting  Dierenger's  apologetic  work,  On  Heathen 
Magic,  Divination,  and  Soothsaying ;  but  doubt  not  that  it  must  contain 
much  of  interest  on  this  and  kindred  matters. 

^  According  to  Gregory  the  Great  (Moral,  xxxiv.  3)  one  of  the  hardest 
trials  of  the  elect  in  the  last  great  tribulation  will  be,  the  far  more 
glorious  miracles  which  Antichrist  shall  show,  than  any  which  the 
Church  shall  then  be  allowed  to  accomplish.  From  the  Church  signs 
and  wonders  will  be  well  nigh  or  altogether  withdrawn,  while  the  great- 
est and  most  startling  of  these  will  be  at  his  beck. 

*  *  Therefore  hath  God  reserved  to  Himself  the  power  of  miracles  as  a 
prerogative ;  for  the  devil  does  no  miracles ;  the  devil  and  his  instru- 
ments do  but  hasten  nature,  or  hinder  nature,  antedate  nature,  or 
postdate  nature,  bring  things  sooner  to  pass,  or  retard  the^ ;  and  how- 


26  THE  AUTHORITY  OF 

they  liave,  indeed,  in  common  with  it,  that  they  are  real 
works  of  a  power  which  is  suffered  to  extend  thus  far,  and 
not  merely  dexterous  feats  of  legerdemain ;  but  this,  also, 
which  is  most  different,  that  they  are  abrupt,  isolated, 
parts  of  no  organic  whole  ;  not  the  highest  harmonies,  but 
the  deepest  discords,  of  the  universe ;  ^  not  the  omnipotence 
of  God  wielding  his  own  world  to  ends  of  grace  and  wis- 
dom and  love,  but  evil  permitted  to  intrude  into  the  hidden 
springs  of  things  just  so  far  as  may  suffice  for  its  own 
deeper  confusion  in  the  end,  and,  in  the  mean  while,  for 
the  needful  trial  and  perfecting  of  God's  saints  and  ser- 
vants.'' 

This  fact,  however,  that  the  kingdom  of  lies  has  its  won- 
ders no  less  than  the  kingdom  of  truth,  is  itself  sufficient 
evidence  that  miracles  cannot  be  appealed  to  absolutely 
and  finally,  in  proof  of  the  doctrine  which  the  worker  of 
them  proclaims ;  and  God's  word  expressly  declares  the 
same  (Deut.  xiii.  1-5).  A  miracle  does  not  prove  the 
truth  of  a  doctrine,  or  the  divine  mission  of  him  that 
brings  it  to  pass.  That  which  alone  it  claims  for  him  at 
the  first  is  a  right  to  be  listened  to :  it  puts  him  in  the 
alternative  of  being  from  heaven  or  from  hell.  The  doc- 
trine must  first  commend  itself  to  the  conscience  as  being 
good,  and  only  then  can  the  miracle  seal  it  as  divine.^ 

soever  they  pretend  to  oppose  nature,  yet  still  it  is  but  upon  nature,  and 
but  by  natural  means,  that  they  work.  Facit  niirabilia  magna  solus, 
says  David  [Ps,  cxxxvi.  4] ;  there  are  mirabilia  parva,  some  lesser  won- 
ders, that  the  devil  and  his  instruments,  Pharaoh's  sorcerers,  can  do  ; 
but  when  it  comes  to  mirabilia  magna,  great  wonders,  so  great  as  that 
they  amount  to  the  nature  of  a  miracle,  facit  solus,  God  and  God  only 
does  them.' — Donne,  Sermons,  p.  215. 

*  They  have  the  Veritas /or?H«,  but  not  the  yex'ii&sjlnis. 

'  See  Augustine,  De  Trin.  iii.  7-9. 

^  Jeremy  Taylor  {Liberty  of  Prophesying) :  '  Although  the  argument 
drawn  from  miracles  is  good  to  attest  a  holy  doctrine,  which  by  its  own 
worth  will  support  itself  after  way  is  a  little  made  by  miracles ;  yet  of 
itself  and  by  its  own  reputation  it  will  not  support  any  fabric  ;  for  in- 
stead of  proving  a  doctrine  to  be  true,  it  makes  that  the  miracles  them- 
eelves  ars  suspected  to  be  illusions,  if  they  be  pretended  in  behalf  of  a 
doctrine  which  we  think  we  have  reason  to  account  false.' 


MIRACLES.  27 

But  the  first  appeal  is  from  the  doctrine  to  the  conscience, 
to  the  moral  nature  in  man.  For  all  revelation  presup- 
poses in  man  a  power  of  recognizing  the  truth  when  it  is 
shown  him, — that  it  will  find  an  answer  in  him, — that  he 
will  trace  in  it  the  lineaments  of  a  friend,  though  of  a 
friend  from  whom  he  has  been  long  estranged,  and  whom 
he  has  well  nigh  forgotten.  It  is  the  finding  of  a  trea- 
sure, but  of  a  treasure  which  he  himself  and  no  other  had 
lost.  The  denial  of  this,  that  there  is  in  man  any  organ 
bj  which  truth  may  be  recognized,  opens  the  door  to  the 
most  boundless  scepticism,  is  indeed  the  denial  of  all  that 
is  godlike  in  man.  But  *  he  that  is  of  God,  heareth  God's 
word,'  and  knows  it  for  that  which  it  proclaims  itself 
to  be. 

It  may  be  objected,  indeed.  If  this  be  so,  if  there  be 
this  inward  witness  of  the  truth,  what  need  then  of  the 
miracle  ?  to  what  end  does  it  serve,  when  the  truth  has 
accredited  itself  already  ?  It  has  indeed  accredited  it- 
self as  good,  asfrom  God  in  the  sense  that  all  which  is 
good  and  true  is  from  Him,  as  whatever  was  precious  in 
the  teaching  even  of  heathen  sage  or  poet  was  from 
Him ; — but  not  as  yet  as  a  new  word  directly  from  Him, 
a  new  speaking  on  his  part  to  man.  /The  miracle  shall  be 
credentials  for  the  bearer  of  that  good  word,  signs  that 
he  has  a  special  mission  for  the  realization  of  the  pur- 
poses of  God  in  regard  of  humanity.'  When  the  truth 
has  found  a  receptive  heart,  has  awoke  deep  echoes  in  the 
innermost  soul  of  man,  he  who  brings  it  may  thus  show 
that  he  stands  yet  nearer  to  God  than  others,  that  he  is 
to  be  heard  not  merely  as  one  that  is  true,  but  as  himself 
the  Truth  (see  Matt.  xi.  4,  5 ;  John  v.  36)  ;  or  at  least, 
as  a  messenger  standing  in  direct  connexion  with  Him 
who  is  the  Truth  (i   Xin.  xiii.  3) ;  claiming  unreserved 

*  Gregory  the  Great  (Horn.  iv.  in  Hvafiff.)  :  Unde  et  adjuncta  sunt 
prsedicatiouibua  Sanctis  miracula ;  ut  fidem  verbis  daret  vii'tus  odtensa, 
st  nova  facerent,  qui  nova  prcedicarent, 

3 


28  THE  AUTHORITY  OF 

submission,  and  the  reception,  upon  his  authority,  of  other 
statements  which  transcend  the  mind  of  man, —  mysteries, 
which  though,  of  course,  not  against  that  measure  and 
standard  of  truth  which  God  has  given  unto  every  man, 
yet  cannot  be  weighed  or  measured  by  it. 

To  demand  such  a  sign  from  one  who  comes  professir\g 
to  be  the  utterer  of  a  new  revelation,  the  bringer  of  a 
direct  message  from  God,  to  demand  this,  even  when  the 
word  already  commends  itself  as  good,  is  no  mark  of 
unbelief,  but  on  the  contrary  is  a  duty  upon  his  part  to 
whom  the  message  is  brought.  Else  might  he  lightly  be 
persuaded  to  receive  that  as  from  God,  which,  indeed,  was 
only  the  word  of  man.  Credulity  is  as  real,  if  not  so 
great,  a  sin  as  unbelief.  It  was  no  impiety  on  the  part  of 
Pharaoh  to  say  to  Moses  and  Aaron,  *  Show  a  miracle  for 
you'  (Exod.  vii.  9,  10) ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  altogether 
right  for  him  to  require  this.  They  came,  averring  they 
had  a  message  for  him  from  God  :  it  was  his  duty  to  put 
them  to  the  proof.  His  sin  began,  when  he  refused  to 
believe  their  credentials.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  a 
mark  of  unbelief  in  Ahaz  (Isai.  vii.  10-13),  however  he 
might  disguise  it,  that  he  would  not  ask  a  sign  from  God 
in  confirmation  of  the  prophet's  word.  Had  that  word  been 
more  precious  to  him,  he  would  not  have  been  satisfied 
till  the  seal  was  set  to  it ;  and  that  he  did  not  care  for  the 
seal  was  a  sure  evidence  that  he  did  not  truly  care  for  the 
promise  which  should  receive  the  seal.  ' 

But  the  purpose  of  the  miracle  being,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  confirm  that  which  is  good,  so,  upon  the  other  hand, 
where  the  mind  and  conscience  witness  against  the  doc- 
trine, not  all  the  miracles  in  the  world  have  a  right  to 
demand  submission  to  the  word  which  they  seal.*  On  the 
contrary,  the  great  act  of  faith  is  to  believe,  against,  and 

^  As  Gregory  the  Great  says  well,  The  Churcli  does  not  so  much  deny, 
as  despise  the  miracles  of  heretics  {Moral,  xx.  7)  :  Sancta  Ecclesia,  etiam 
81  qua  fiunt  hjereticorum  miracula,  despicit ;  quia  hsec  sanctitatis  speci- 
men non  esse  cognoscit. 


MIRACLES.  29 

in  despite  of,  them  all,  in  what  God  has  revealed  to,  and 
implanted  in,  the  soul,  of  the  holy  and  the  true ;  not  to 
believe  another  Gospel,  though  an  Angel  from  heaven,  or 
one  transformed  into  such,  should  bring  it  (Dent.  xiii.  3  ; 
Gal.  i.  8) ; '  and  instead  of  compelling  assent,  miracles 
are  then  rather  warnings  to  us  that  we  keep  aloof,  for 
they  tell  us  that  not  merely  lies  are  here,  for  to  that  the 
conscience  bore  witness  already,  but  that  he  who  utters 
them  is  more  than  a  common  deceiver,  is  eminently  '  a 
liar  and  an  Antichrist,'  a  false  prophet, — standing  in  more 
immediate  connexion  than  other  deceived  and  evil  men  to 
the  kingdom  of  darkness,  so  that  Satan  has  given  him  his 
power  (Rev.  xiii.  2),  is  using  him  to  be  an  especial  organ  of 
his,  and  to  do  a  special  work  for  him.* 

But  if  these  things  are  so,  there  might  seem  a  twofold 
danger  to  which  the  simple  and  unlearned  Christian  would 
be  exposed — the  danger,  first,  of  not  receiving  that  which 
indeed  comes  from  God,  or  secondly,  of  receiving  that  which 
comes  from  an  evil  source.  But  indeed  these  dangers  do 
not  beset  the  unlearned  and  the  simple  more  than  they 

^  Augustine  (Z)e  Civ.  Dei,  x.  16):  Si  tantum  hi  [ang'eli]  mirabilibus 
factis  humanas  permoverent  mentes,  qui  sacrificia  sibi  expetuut :  illi 
autera  qui  hoc  prohibent,  et  uni  tantum  Deo  sacrificanjubent,nequaquam 
ista  visibilia  miracula  facere  dignarentur,  profecto  non  sensu  corporis, 
sed  ratione  mentis  prseponenda  eorum  esset  auctoritas.  So  to  the  Mani- 
chseans  he  says  {Con.  Faust,  xiii.  5)  :  Miracula  non  facitis  ;  quae  si  faceretis, 
etiam  ipsa  in  vobis  caveremus,  prsestruente  nos  Domino,  et  dicente,  Ex- 
surgent  multi  pseudo-christi  et  pseudo-prophetEe,  et  facient  signa  et 
prodigia  multa.     Theodoret  too  comments  on  Deut.  xiii.  3  thus  :  SicaaKo- 

jjLiOa  Hi)  TrpoffEXf'i'  "■»;/«« (occ,  orav  u  ravra  CpCJv  tfcii'Tia  rjj  iii(7fl3fig,fiSd(JKSt. 

^  Thus  Irengeus  {Adv.  Har.  11.  xxxi.  3)  calls  such  deceitful  workers 
'precursors  of  the  great  Dragon,'  quos  similiter  atque  ilium  devitare 
oportet,  et  quanto  majore  phantasmate  operari  dicuntur,  tanto  magis 
observare  eos,  quasi  majorem  nequitioe  spii-itum  perceperint.  And  Ter- 
tullian,  refuting  Gnostics,  who  argued  that  there  was  no  need  that  Christ 
should  have  been  prophesied  of  beforehand,  since  He  could  at  once  prove 
his  mission  by  his  miracles  [per  documenta  virtutum],  replies  (Adv.  Marc. 
iii.  3) :  At  ego  negabo  solam  banc  illi  speciem  ad  testimonium  competisse, 
quam  et  Ipse  postniodum  exauctoravit.  Siquidem  edicens  multos  ventures, 
et  signa  facturos,  et  virtutes  magnas  edituros,  aversionem  [eversionem  ?] 
etiam  electorum ;  nee  ideo  tamen  admittendos,  temerariam  signorum  et 
virtutum  fidem  ostendit,  ut  etiam  apud  pseudo-christos  facillimarum. 


30  THE  AUTHORITY  OF 

beset  and  are  part  of  the  trial  and  temptation  of  everj 
man ;  the  safeguard  from  either  of  these  fatal  errors  lying 
altogether  in  men's  moral  and  spiritual,  and  not  at  all  in 
their  intellectual,  condition.  They  only  find  the  witness 
■which  the  truth  bears  to  itself  to  be  no  "witness,  they  only 
believe  the  lying  wonders,  in  whom  the  mora]  sense  is 
already  perverted ;  they  have  not  before  received  the  love 
of  the  truth,  that  they  might  be  saved  from  believing  a  lie. 
Thus,  then,  their  believing  this  lie  and  rejecting  that  truth 
is,  in  fact,  but  the  final  judgment  upon  them  that  have 
had  pleasure  in  unrighteousness.  With  this  view  exactly 
agree  the  memorable  words  of  St.  Paul  (2  Thess.  ii.  9-12), 
wherein  he  declares  that  it  is  the  anterior  state  of  every 
man  which  shall  decide  whether  he  shall  receive  the  lying 
wonders  of  Antichrist  or  reject  them  (cf.  John  v.  43).' 
For  while  these  come  'with  all  deceivableness  of  un- 
righteousness '  to  them  whose  previous  condition  has 
fitted  them  to  embrace  them,  who  have  been  ripening 
themselves  for  this  extreme  judgment,  there  is  ever  some- 
thing in  these  wonders,  something  false,  or  immoral,  or 
ostentatious,  or  something  merely  idle,  which  detects  and 
lays  them  bare  to  a  simple  faith,  and  for  that  at  once 
broadly  differences  them  from  those  which  belong  to  the 
kingdom  of  the  truth. ^ 

These  differences  have  been  often  brought  out.  Such 
miracles  are  immoral ; '  or  if  not  immoral,  they  are  idle, 

^  Augustine  (2)e  Civ.  Dei,  xx.  19)  :  Seducentur  eis  signis  atque  pro- 
digiia  g^ui  seduci  merebuntur.  Proinde  judicati  seducentur,  et  seducti 
judicabuntur. 

*  '  Yqu  complain,'  says  Dr.  Arnold,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Hawkins  {Life, 
vol.  ii.  p.  226),  '  of  tliose  persons  who  judge  of  a  revelation  not  by  its 
evidence,  but  by  its  substance.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  its  sub- 
stance ig  g,  most  essential  part  of  its  evidence ;  and  that  miracles  wrought 
in  favour  of  what  was  foolish  or  wicked,  would  only  prove  Manicheism. 
We  are  so  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  unseen  world,  that  the  character  of 
any  supernatural  power  can  only  be  judged  by  the  moral  character  of  the 
statements  which  it  sanctions.  Thus  only  can  we  tell  whether  it  be  a 
revelation  from  God  or  from  the  Devil.' 

'  Thus  Amobius  {Ado.  Gen.  i.  43)  of  the  heathen  wonder-workers : 


MIRACLES.  31 

leading  to  and  ending  in  nothing.  For  as  the  miracle, 
standing  in  connexion  witli  highest  moral  ends,  must 
not  be  itself  an  immoral  act,  as  little  may  it  be  an  act 
merely  futile,  issuing  in  vanity  and  nothingness.  This  argu- 
ment Origen  continually  uses,  when  plied  with  the  alleged 
miracles  of  heathen  saints  and  sages.  He  counts,  and 
rightly,  that  he  has  abundantly  convinced  them  of  false- 
hood, when  he  has  asked,  and  obtained  no  answer  to,  this 
question,  *  What  came  of  these  ?  In  what  did  they 
issue  ?  Where  is  the  society  which  has  been  founded  by 
their  help  ?  What  is  there  in  the  world's  history  which 
they  have  helped  forward,  to  show  that  they  lay  deep  in 
the  mind  and  counsel  of  God  ?  The  miracles  of  Moses 
issued  in  a  Jewish  polity;  those  of  Jesus  Christ  in  a 
Christian  Church ;  whole  nations  were  knit  together 
through  their  help."  What  have  your  boasted  Apollonius 
or  Esculapius  to  show  as  the  fruit  of  theirs  9  What  traces 
have  they  left  behind  them  ?  '  ^  And  not  merely,  he  goes 
on  to  say,  were  Christ's  miracles  effectual,  but  effectual 
for  good, — and  such  good  was  their  distinct  purpose  and 
aim  ;  for  this  is  the  characteristic  distinction  between  the 
dealer  in  false  shows  of  power  and  the  true  worker  of 
divine  works,  that  the  latter  has  ever  the  reformation  of 
men  in  his  eye,  and  seeks  always  to  forward  this ;  while 
the  first,  whose  own  work  is  built  upon  fraud  and  lies,  can 
have  no  such  purpose  of  destroying  that  very  kingdom  out 
of  which  he  himself  grows.' 

Quis  enim  hos  nesciat  aut  imminentia  studere  prsenoscere,  qua3  necessario 
(velint  nolint)  suis  ordinationibus  veniunt  ?  aut  mortiferam  immittere 
quibus  libuerit  tabem,  aut  familiarium  dirumpere  caritates :  aut  sine 
clavibus  reserare,  quae  clausa  sunt ;  aut  ora  silentio  vincire,  aut  in  curri- 
culis  equos  debilitare,  incitare,  tardare ;  aut  uxoribus  et  liberis  alienis 
(sive  illi  mares  sint,  sive  feminei  generis)  inconcessi  amoris  flammas  et 
furiales  immittere  cupiditates?     Cf.  Irenaeus,  Ado.  Kcer.  II.  31.  2,  3. 

'    Con.  Cels.  ii.  51  :   'EBx'Cjv  oXmv  avardyroiv  fiiTO.  TO.  ar]fiiia  avrwi'. 

'  Ibid.  i.  67  :  AtucrvTuaav  yftTv  "RWrjvtg  rmv  KaTiiXiyfiiviov  rivbg  (3iw<pi\'tg^ 
XajjnpoVf  Kctl  irapaTtli/av  tTcl  Tag  virtpov  ycptaQf  Kai  Tt]\iKovrov  tpyov,  wg 
iuiroulv  TTi"av6Ti}Ta  T(f  iripi  avruiv  ^vQtffXkyovn  ottu  9tiag  avTOvg  yiyoviyai 

'  Cmi.  Cels.  i.  68  ;  cf.  Eusebius,  Dem.  Eoany.  ili.  6. 


32  THE  AUTHORITY  OF 

These,  too,  are  marks  of  the  true  miracle,  and  marks  very 
nearly  connected  with  the  foregoing,  that  it  is  never  a 
mere  freak  of  power,  done  as  in  wantonness,  with  no  need 
compelling,  for  show  and  ostentation.'  With  good  right 
in  that  remarkable  religious  romance  of  earliest  Christian 
times.  The  Recognitions  of  Clement,^  and  in  the  cognate 
Clementine  Homilies,^  Peter  draws  a  contrast  between  the 
wonderful  works  of  Christ  and  those  alleged  by  the  follow- 
ers of  Simon  Magus  to  have  been  wrought  by  their  master. 
What  profit,  he  asks,  what  significance  was  there  in 
Simon's  speaking  statues,  his  dogs  of  brass  or  stone  that 
barked,  his  flights  through  the  air,  his  transformations  of 
himself  now  into  a  serpent,  now  into  a  goat,  his  putting 
on  of  two  faces,  his  rolling  himself  unhurt  upon  burning 
coals,  and  the  like  ? — which  even  if  he  had  done,  the  works 
possessed  no  meaning ;  they  stood  in  relation  to  nothing  ; 
they  were  not,  what  each  true  miracle  is  always  more  or 
less,  redemptive  acts  ;  in  other  words,  works  not  merely  of 
power  but  of  grace,  each  one  an  index  and  a  prophecy  of 
the  inner  work  of  man's  deliverance,  which  it  accompanies 
and  helps  forward.*  But,  as  we  should  justly  expect,  it 
was  preeminently  thus  with  the  miracles  of  Christ.  Each 
of  these  is  in  small,  and  upon  one  side  or  another,  a  partial 
and  transient  realization  of  the  great  work,  which  He 
came  that  in  the  end  He  might  accomplish  perfectly  and 
for  ever.  They  are  all  pledges,  in  that  they  are  themselves 
first-fruits  of  his  power;  in  each  of  them  the  word  of 

^  Gerson  (De  Distinct,  Ver.  Mirac.) :  Miraculuin,  si  pia  utilitate  aut 
necessitate  careat,  eo  facto  suspectuin  est. 

^  iii.  6  (Ootelerii  Patt.  Apost.  vol.  i.  p.  529). 

'  Horn,  ii,  32-44  (ibid.  p.  629). 

*  Jlom.Wi.  Go  (ibid.  p.  529)  :  Nam  die,  qufeso,  quse  utilitas  est  ostendere 
statuas  ambulantes  ?  latrare  sereos  aut  lapideos  canes  ?  salire  montes  ? 
volare  per  aerem  ?  et  alia  his  similia,  qusfi  dicitis  fecisse  Sinionem  ?  Quie 
autem  a  Bono  sunt,  ad  hominum  salutem  deferuntur  ;  ut  sunt  ilia  quas 
fecit  Dominus  noster,  qui  fecit  coecos  videre,  fecit  surdos  audire ;  debiles 

et  claudos  erexit,  languores  et  dsemones  eftugavit Ista  ergo  sicrna 

quae  ad  salutem  hominum  prosunt,  et  aliquid  boni  homiuibus  conferunt. 
Malignus  facere  non  potest.     Cf.  Irenseus,  Con.  Hccr.  11.  xxxiL  3. 


MIRACLES.  33 

salvation  is  incorporated  in  an  act  of  salvation.  Only  when 
regarded  in  this  light  do  they  appear  not  merely  as  illus- 
trious examples  of  his  might,  but  also  as  glorious  manifes- 
tations of  his  holy  love.' 

It  is  worth  while  to  follow  this  a  little  in  detail.  What 
evils  are  they,  which  hinder  man  from  reaching  the  true 
end  and  aim  of  his  creation,  and  from  which  he  needs  a 
redemption  ?  It  may  briefly  be  answered  that  they  are  sin 
in  its  moral  and  in  its  physical  manifestations.  If  we 
regard  its  moral  manifestations,  in  the  darkness  of  the 
understanding,  in  the  wild  discords  of  the  spiritual  life, 
none  were  such  fearful  examples  of  its  tyranny  as  the 
demoniacs ;  they  were  special  objects,  therefore,  of  the 
miraculous  power  of  the  Lord.  Then  if  we  ask  ourselves 
what  are  the  physical  manifestations  of  sin ;  they  are 
sicknesses  of  all  kinds,  fevers,  palsies,  leprosies,  blindness, 
each  of  these  death  beginning,  a  partial  death — and  finally, 
the  death  absolute  of  the  body.  This  region  therefore  is 
fitly  another,  as  it  is  the  widest  region,  of  his  redemptive 
grace.  In  the  conquering  and  removing  of  these  evils,  He 
eminently  bodied  forth  the  idea  of  Himself  as  the  Re- 
deemer of  men.  But  besides  these,  sin  has  its  manifesta- 
tions more  purely  physical ;  it  reveals  itself  and  its  conse- 
quences in  the  tumults  and  strife  of  the  elements  among 
themselves,  as  in  the  rebellion  of  nature  against  man ;  for 
the  destinies  of  the  natural  world  were  linked  to  the  des- 
tinies of  man ;  and  when  he  fell,  he  drew  after  him  his 
whole  inheritance,  which   became   subject   to    the   same 

^  No  one  will,  I  think,  deny  to  the  liistorian  Niebuhr  the  possession  in 
a  very  high  degree  of  that  critical  faculty,  -which  judges  of  the  credibility, 
or  the  contrary,  of  events  presented  as  true,  and  this  is  his  remarkable 
testimony  on  this  mBii^x  {Lebensnachrichten,  \o\.  i.  p.  470):  Was  nun 
Wunder  im  strengsten  Sinne  betrifft,  so  bedarf  es  wahrhaftig  nur  einer 
unbefangenen  uud  scharfblickenden  Naturforschung  damit  wir  einsehen, 
dass  die  erzahlten  der  christlichen  Geschichte  nichts  weniger  als  wider- 
sinnig  sind,  und  einer  Vergleichung  mit  Legendenmarchen  oder  den  angeb- 
lichen  anderer  Religioaen  um  wanrzunehmen,  welch  ein  anderer  Geiat 
in  ihnen  lebt. 


34  THE  AUTHORITY  OF 

vanity  as  liimself.  Therefore  do  we  behold  Him,  in  whom 
the  lost  prerogatives  of  the  race  were  recovered,  walking 
on  the  stormy  waves,  or  quelling  the  menace  of  the  sea 
with  his  word ;  incorporating  in  these  acts  the  deliverance 
of  man  from  the  rebellious  powers  of  nature,  which  had 
risen  up  against  him,  and  instead  of  his  willing  servants, 
were  oftentimes  now  his  tyrants  and  his  destroyers.  These 
also  were  redemptive  acts.  Even  the  two  or  three  of  his 
works  which  do  not  range  themselves  so  readily  under  any 
of  these  heads,  yet  are  not  indeed  exceptions.  Take,  for 
example,  the  multiplying  of  the  bread.  The  original  curse 
of  sin  was  the  curse  of  barrenness, — the  earth  yielding 
hard-won  and  scanty  returns  to  the  sweat  and  labour  of 
man ;  but  here  this  curse  is  removed,  and  in  its  stead  the 
primeval  abundance  for  a  moment  re-appears.  All  scant- 
ness  and  scarceness,  such  as  this  lack  of  bread  in  the 
wilderness,  that  failing  of  the  wine  at  the  marriage-feast, 
were  not  man's  portion  at  the  first;  for  all  the  earth  was 
appointed  to  serve  him,  and  to  pour  the  fulness  of  its  treasure 
into  his  lap.  That  he  ever  should  hunger  or  thirst,  that 
he  should  ever  have  lack  of  anything,  was  a  consequence 
of  Adam's  sin, — fitly,  therefore,  removed  by  Him,  the 
second  Adam,  who  came  to  restore  to  him  all  which  had 
been  forfeited  by  the  first. 

The  miracle,  then,  being  this  ethical  act,  and  only  to 
be  received  when  it  is  so,  and  when  it  seals  doctrines  of 
holiness,  the  forgetting  or  failing  to  bring  forward  that 
the  divine  miracle  must,  of  necessity,  move  in  this  sphere 
of  redemption  only,  that  the  doctrine  also  is  to  try  the 
miracle,  as  well  as  the  miracle  to  seal  the  doctrine,  is  a 
dangerous  omission  on  the  part  of  some  who,  in  modern 
times,  have  written  *  Evidences  of  Christianity,''  and  have 
found  in  the  miracles  wrought  by  its  Founder,  and  in 
these  mainly  as  acts  of  power,  well-nigh  the  exclusive 
argument  for  its  reception  as  a  divine  revelation.  On  the 
place  which  these  works  should  take  in  the  array  of  proofs 


MIRACLES.  35 

for  the  tilings  wliicli  we  believe,  tliere  will  be  occasion,  by 
and  by,  to  speak.  For  the  present  it  may  be  sufficient  to 
observe,  that  if  men  are  taught  to  believe  in  Christ  upon 
no  other  grounds  than  because  He  attested  his  claims  by 
works  of  wonder,  and  that  they  are  therefore  bound  to  do 
so,  how  shall  they  consistently  refuse  belief  to  any  other, 
who  may  come  hereafter  attesting  his  claims  by  the  same  ? 
We  have  here  a  paving  of  the  way  of  Antichrist ;  for  as 
we  know  that  he  will  have  his  '  signs  and  wonders ' 
(2  Thess.  ii.  9),  so,  if  this  argument  is  good,  he  will  have 
right  on  the  score  of  these  to  claim  the  fiiith  and  allegi- 
ance of  men.  But  no ;  the  miracle  must  witness  for  itself, 
and  the  doctrine  must  witness  for  itself,  and  then,  and 
then  only,  the  first  is  capable  of  witnessing  for  the 
second ; '  and  those  books  of  Christian  Evidences  are 
maimed  and  imperfect,  fraught  with  the  most  perilous 
consequences,  which  reverence  in  the  miracle  little  else 
but  its  power,  and  see  in  that  alone  what  gives  either  to 
it  its  attesting  worth,  or  to  the  doctrine  its  authority  as 
adequately  attested  truth. 

^  Gerhard  {Loc.  Theoll.  loc.  xxiii.  11):  Miracula  sunt  doctrinse  tesserae 
ac  sigilla ;  quemadmodum  igitur  sigillum  a  Uteris  avulsum  nihil  probat, 
ita  quoque  miracula  sine  doctrina  nihil  yalent. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

TRE  EVANGELICAL,  COMPARED   WITH  OTHER 
CYCLES  OF  MIRACLES. 

I.  The  Miracles  of  the  Old  Testament. 

THE  miracles  of  our  Lord  and  those  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment afford  many  interesting  points  of  comparison, 
a  comparison  equally  instructive,  whether  we  trace  the 
points  of  likeness,  or  of  unlikeness,  which  exist  between 
them.  Thus,  to  note  first  a  remarkable  difference,  we 
find  oftentimes  the  holy  men  of  the  older  Covenant 
bringing,  if  one  may  venture  so  to  speak,  hardly,  and 
with  difficulty,  the  wonder-work  to  pass ;  it  is  not  born 
without  pangs  ;  there  is  sometimes  a  momentary  pause,  a 
seeming  uncertainty  about  the  issue ;  while  the  miracles 
of  Christ  are  always  accomplished  with  the  highest  ease  ; 
He  speaks,  and  it  is  done.  Thus  Moses  must  plead  and 
-struggle  with  God,  *Heal  her  now,  0  God,  I  beseech 
Thee,'  before  the  plague  of  leprosy  is  removed  from  his 
sister,  and  not  even  so  can  he  instantly  win  the  boon 
(Num.  xii.  13-15) ;  but  Christ  heals  a  leper  by  his  touch 
(Matt.  viii.  3)  or  ten  with  even  less  than  this,  merely  by 
the  power  of  his  will  and  at  a  distance  ^  (Luke  xvii.  14). 
Elijah  must  pray  long,  and  his  servant  go  up  seven  times, 
before  tokens  of  the  rain  appear  (i  Kin.  xviii.  42-44)  ;  he 
stretches  himself  thrice  on  the  child  and  cries  unto  the 

*  Cyril  of  Alexandria  (Cramer's  Cat.  in  Luc.  v.  1 2)  has  observed  and 
irawn  out  the  contrast. 


THE  EVANGELICAL   MIRACLES.  37 

Lord,  and  painfully  wins  back  its  life  (i  Kin.  xvii.  21, 
22)  ;  and  Elislia,  with  yet  more  of  effort  and  only  after 
partial  failure  (2  Kin.  iv.  31-35),  restores  the  child  of  the 
Shunamniite  to  life.  Christ,  on  the  other  hand,  shows 
Himself  the  Lord  of  the  living  and  the  dead,  raising  the 
dead  with  as  much  ease  as  He  performs  the  commonest 
transactions  of  life. — In  the  miracles  wrought  by  men, 
glorious  acts  of  faith  as  they  are,  for  they  are  ever 
wrought  in  reliance  on  the  strength  and  faithfulness  of 
God,  who  will  follow  up  and  seal  his  servant's  word,  it  is 
yet  possible  for  human  impatience  and  human  unbelief  to 
break  out.  Thus  Moses,  God's  instrument  though  he  be 
for  the  work  of  power,  speaks  hastily  and  acts  unbeliev- 
ingly (Num.  XX.  11).  It  is  needless  to  say  of  the  Son, 
that  his  confidence  ever  remains  the  same,  that  his 
Father  hears  Him  always ;  no  admixture  of  the  slightest 
human  infirmity  mars  the  completeness  of  his  work. 

Where  the  miracles  are  similar  in  kind,  Christ's  are 
larger,  freer,  and  more  glorious.  Elisha,  indeed,  feeds  a 
hundred  men  with  twenty  loaves  (2  Kin.  iv.  42-44),  but 
He  five  thousand  with  five.'  Others  have  their  instru- 
ment of  power  to  which  the  wonder-working  energy  is 
linked.  Thus  Moses  has  his  rod,  his  staff  of  wonder,  to 
divide  the  Eed  Sea,  and  to  accomplish  his  other  mighty 
acts;  without  which  he  is  nothing  (Exod.  vii.  19  ;  viii.  5, 
16;  ix.  23;  X.  13;  xiv.  16,  &c.) ;  his  tree  to  heal  the 
bitter  waters  (Exod.  xv.  25) ;  Elijah  divides  the  river  with 
his  mantle  (2  Kin.  ii.  8) ;  Elisha  heals  the  spring  with  a 
cruse  of  salt  (2  Kin.  ii.  20).  But  Christ  accomplishes  his 
miracles  simply  by  the  agency  of  his  word  (Matt.  xii.  13), 
or  by  a  touch  (Matt.  viii.  3 ;  xx.  34) ;  or  if  He  takes  any 
material  substance  as  the  conductor  of  his  healing  power, 

^  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc.iy.  35):  Aliter  Dominus  per  semet  ipsum 
operatur,  sive  per  Filiura ;  aliter  per  prophetas  famulos  suos ;  maxime 
doeumenta  virtutis  et  potestatis ;  q^use  ut  clariora  et  validiora,  q^ua  pro- 
pria, distare  a  vicariis  fas  est. 


38  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

it  is  from  Himself  He  takes  it  (Mark  vii.  33  ;  viii.  23)  ;'  or 
should  He,  as  once  He  does,  use  any  foreign  medium  in 
part  (John  ix.  6),  yet  by  other  miracles  of  like  kind,  in 
which  He  has  recourse  to  no  such  extraneous  helps.  He 
declares  plainly  that  this  was  of  free  choice,  and  not  of 
necessity.  And  which  is  but  another  side  of  the  same 
truth,  while  the  miracles  of  Moses,  or  of  the  Apostles,  are 
ever  done  in  the  name  of,  and  with  the  attribution  of  the 
glory  to,  another,  *  Stand  still  and  see  the  salvation  of  the 
Lord,  which  He  will  show  you'  (Exod.  xiv.  13),  'In  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth  rise  up  and  walk  '  (Acts 
iii.  6),  '  Eneas,  Jesus  Christ  maketh  thee  whole  '  (Acts  ix. 
34 ;  cf.  Mark  xvi.  1 7  ;  Luke  x.  1 7  ;  John  xiv.  i  o) ;  his  are 
ever  wrought  in  his  own  name  and  by  a  power  immanent 
and  inherent  in  Himself :  '  I  will,  be  thou  clean '  (Matt, 
viii.  3) ;  '  Thou  deaf  and  dumb  spirit,  /  charge  thee  come 
out  of  him '  (Mark  ix.  25) ;  '  Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee. 
Arise  '  (Luke  vii.  14).^  Where  He  prays,  being  about  to 
perform  one  of  his  mighty  works,  his  disciples  shall  learn 
even  from  his  prayer  itself  that  herein  He  is  not  asking 
for  a  power  not  indwelling  in  Him,  but  indeed  only  testi- 
fying thus  to  the  unbroken  oneness  of  his  life  with  his 
Father's  (John  xi.  41,  42);^  just  as  on  another  occasion 
He  will  not  suffer  his  disciples  to  suppose  that  it  is  for 
other  than  their  sakes  that  the  testimony  from  heaven  is 
borne  unto  Hiui  (John  xii.  30).     Thus  needful  was  it  for 

'  In  tlie  East  the  Maliometans  had  probably  a  sense  of  this  fitness  that 
Christ  should  find  all  in  Himself,  when  they  made  his  healing  virtue  to 
have  resided  in  his  breath  (Tholuck,  Bliithensnmml.  aiis  d.  Morgenl.  Myst, 
p.  62) ;  to  which  also  they  were  led  as  being  the  purest  and  least  material 
effluence  of  the  body  (cf.  John  xx.  22).  So  Abgarus,  in  the  apocryphal 
letter  which  bears  his  name,  magnifies  Christ's  healings,  in  that  they  were 
done  avtv  (papfic'iKwi'  Kai  iSorapwr,  Arnobius  too  (Adv.  Gent.  i.  43,  44,  48, 
52)  lays  great  stress  upon  the  point,  that  all  which  He  did  was  done  sine 
uUis  adminiculis  rerum  ;  he  is  comparing,  it  is  true,  our  Lord's  miracles 
with  the  lying  wonders  of  the  yo>;r£c,not  with  the  only  relatively  inferior 
of  the  Old  Testament. 

"  See  Pearson,  On  the  Creed,  Art.  2;  Gerhard,  Loc.  Theoll.  loc.  iv.  5,  5f. 

'  Cf.  Ambrose;  Dc  Fide,  iii.  4. 


WITH  OTHER    CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.  39 

them,  thus  needful  for  all,  that  they  should  have  high  and 
exclusive  thoughts  of  Him,  and  should  not  class  Him  with 
any  other,  even  the  greatest  and  holiest  of  the  children 
of  men. 

These  likenesses,  and  these  unlikenesses  no  less,  are 
such  as  beforehand  we  shot  Id  naturally  expect.  We 
should  expect  the  mighty  works  of  either  Covenant  to  be 
like,  since  the  old  and  new  form  parts  of  one  organic 
whole ;  and  it  is  ever  God's  law,  alike  in  the  kingdoms 
of  nature  and  of  grace,  that  the  lower  should  contain  the 
germs  and  prophetic  intimations  of  the  higher.  We 
should  expect  them  to  be  unlike,  since  the  very  idea  of 
God's  kingdom  is  that  of  progress,  of  a  gradually  fuller 
communication  and  larger  revelation  of  Himself  to  men, 
so  that  He  who  in  times  past  spake  unto  the  fathers  by 
the  prophets,  did  at  length  speak  unto  us  by  his  Son; 
and  it  was  only  meet  that  this  Son  shoidd  be  clothed 
with  mightier  powers  than  theirs,  and  powers  which  He 
held  not  from  another,  but  such  as  were  evidently  his  own 
in  fee.* 

This,  too,  explains  a  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
miracles  of  the  two  Covenants,  and  how  it  comes  to  pass 
that  those  of  the  Old  wear  oftentimes  a  far  severer  aspect 
than  those  of  the  New.  They  are  miracles,  indeed,  of 
God's  grace,  but  yet  also  miracles  of  the  Law,  of  that 
Law  which  worketh  wrath,  which  will  teach,  at  all  costs, 
the  lesson  of  the  awful  holiness  of  God,  his  hatred  of  the 
sinner's  sin, — a  lesson  which  men  needed  thoroughly  to 
learn,  lest  they  should  mistake  and  abuse  the  new  lesson 
which  a  Saviour  taught,  of  God's  love  at  the  same  time 
toward  the  sinner  himself.     Miracles  of  the  Law,  they 

^  Tertullian  {Ado.  Marc.  iii.  passim)  urges  this  well.  Eusebiug  (Dem. 
Eva)ig.  iii.  2)  traces  in  the  same  way  the  parallelisms  between  the  life  of 
Moses  and  of  Christ.  They  supposed  that  in  so  doing  they  were,  if  any- 
thing, confirming  the  truth  of  each,  though  now  the  assailants  of  Reve- 
lation will  have  it  that  these  coincidencea  are  only  calculated  to  cast 
suspicion  upon  both. 


4-0  THE  EVANGELICAL,   COMPARED 

preserve  a  character  that  accords  with  the  Law ;  being 
oftentimes  fearful  outbreaks  of  God's  anger  against  the 
unrighteousness  of  men ;  such  for  instance  are  the  signs 
and  wonders  in  Egypt,  many  of  those  in  the  desert  (Num. 
xvi.  31;  Lev.  X.  2),  and  some  which  the  later  prophets 
wrought  (2  Kin.  i.  10-12  ;  ii.  23-25) ;  leprosies  are  in- 
flicted (Num.  xii.  10;  2  Chr.  xxvi.  19),  not  removed;  a 
sound  hand  is  withered  and  dried  up  (i  Kin.  xiii.  4),  not 
a  withered  hand  restored.  Not  but  that  these  works  also 
are  for  the  most  part  what  our  Lord's  are  altogether  and 
with  no  single  exception,  namely,  works  of  evident  grace 
and  mercy.  I  affirm  this  of  all  our  Lord's  miracles ;  for 
that  single  one,  which  seems  an  exception,  the  cursing  of 
the  barren  fig-tree,  has  no  right  really  to  be  considered 
such.  Indeed  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  our  blessed  Lord 
could  more  strikingly  have  shown  his  purpose  of  preserv- 
ing throughout  for  his  miracles  their  character  of  bene- 
ficence, or  have  witnessed  for  Himself  that  He  was  come 
not  to  destroy  men's  lives  but  to  save  them,  than  in  this 
circumstance, — that  Avhen  He  needed  in  this  very  love  to 
declare,  not  in  word  only  but  in  act,  what  would  be  the 
consequences  of  an  obstinate  unfruitfulness  and  resistance 
to  his  grace,  and  thus  to  make  manifest  the  severer  side 
of  his  ministry.  He  should  have  chosen  for  the  showing 
out  of  this,  not  one  among  all  the  sinners  who  were  about 
Him,  but  displayed  his  power  upon  a  tree,  which,  itself 
incapable  of  feeling,  might  yet  effisctually  serve  as  a 
sign  and  warning  to  men.  He  will  allow  no  single 
exception   to  the   rule  of  grace   and   love.'     When  He 

^  Lord  Bacon  (Meditationes  Sacrce)  3n  the  words,  Bene  omnia  fecit 
(Mark  vii.  37),  in  which  he  sees  rightly  an  allusion  to  Gen.  i,  31,  goes 
on  to  say :  Verus  plausus :  Deus  cum  universa  erearet,  vidit  quod  singula 
et  omnia  erant  bona  nimis.  Deus,  Verbum  in  miraculis  quae  edidit  (omne 
autem  niiraculum  est  nova  creatio,  et  non  ex  lege  primse  creationis)  nil 
facere  voluit,  quod  non  gratiara  et  beneficentiam  omnino  spiraret.  Moses 
edidit  miracula,  et  profligavit  ^gyptios  pestibus  multis :  Elias  edidit, 
et  occlusit  caelum  ne  plueret  super  terram;  et  rursus  eduxit  de  cselo 
ignem  Dei  super  duces  et  cohortes :  Elizseus  edidit,  et  evocavit  ursas  e 


WITH  OTHER   CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.         41 

blesses,  it  is  men ;  but  when  He  smites,  it  is  an  unfeeling 
tree.' 

It  is  also  noticeable  that  the  region  in  which  the  miracles 
of  the  Old  Testament  chiefly  move,  is  that  of  external 
nature;  they  are  the  dividing  of  the  sea  (Exod.  xiv.  21),  or 
of  a  river  (Josh.  iii.  14;  2  Kin.  ii.  8,  14),  yawnings  of  the 
earth  (Num.  xvi.  31),  fire  falling  down  from  heaven  (i  Kin. 
xviii.  38  ;  2  Kin.  i.  10,  12),  furnaces  which  have  lost  their 
power  to  consume  (Dan.  iii.),  wild-beasts  which  have  laid 
aside  their  inborn  fierceness  in  whole  (Dan.  vi.  18,  22),  or 
in  part  (i  Kin.  xiii.  24,  28),  and  the  like.  Not  of  course 
that  there  are  no  other  miracles  but  these  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  but  this  nature  is  the  haunt  and  main  region 
of  the  miracle  there,  as  in  the  New  it  is  mainly  the  sphere 
of  man's  life  in  which  it  moves.  And  consistently  with 
this,  the  earlier  miracles,  done  as  the  greater  number  of 
them  were,  in  the  presence  of  the  giant  powers  of  heathen- 
dom, have  oftentimes  a  colossal  character.  Those  powers 
of  the  world  are  strong,  but  the  God  of  Israel  will  show 
Himself  to  be  stronger  than  them  all.  Thus  it  is  with 
the  miracles  of  Egypt,  the  miracles  of  Babylon  :  they  are 

deserto,  qiite  laniarent  impuberes ;  Petrus  Ananiam  sacrilegum  hypocri- 
tani  morte,  Paulas  Elyniam  magum  csecitate,  percussit :  sed  nihil  hujus- 
modi  fecit  Jesus.  Descendit  super  eum  Spiritus  in  forma  columbae,  de 
quo  dixit,  Nescilis  cujus  Spiritus  sitis.  Spiritus  Jesu,  spiritus  columbinus: 
fuerunt  illi  servi  Dei  tanquam  boves  Dei  triturantes  granum,  et  concul- 
cantes  paleam ;  sed  Jesus  agnus  Dei  sine  ira  et  judiciis.  Omnia  ejus 
miracula  circa  corpus  humanum,  et  doctrina  ejus  circa  animam  humanam. 
Indiget  corpus  hominis  alimento,  defensione  ab  externis,  et  cura.  Ille 
multitudinem  piscium  in  retibus  congregavit,  ut  uberiorera  victura 
hominibus  prseberet:  ille  alimentum  aquae  in  dignius  alimentum  vini 
ad  exbilarandum  cor  homiuis  convertit :  ille  ficum  quod  officio  suo 
ad  quod  destinatum  fuit,  ad  cibum  hominis  videlicet,  non  fungeretur, 
arefieri  jussit:  ille  penuriam  panum  et  piscium  ad  alendum  exerci- 
tum    populi    dilatavit:    ille    ventos,    quod    navigantibus    minarentur, 

corripuit Nullum  miraculuinjudicii,  omnia  beneficentise,  et 

circa  corpus  humanum. 

*  From  this  point  of  view  we  should  explain  our  Saviour's  rebuke  to 
the  sons  of  Zebedee,  when  they  wanted  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven  on 
a  village  of  the  Samaritans,  *  as  Elias  did '  (Luke  ix.  54)  ;  to  repeat,  that 
is,  an  Old-Testament  miracle. 


42  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

miracles  eminently  of  strength  ;  ^  for  under  the  influence  of 
the  grea ;  nature-worships  of  those  lands,  all  religion  had 
assumed  a  colossal  grandeur  in  its  outward  manifestations. 
Compared  with  our  Lord's  works,  wrought  in  the  days  of 
his  flesh,  those  were  the  whirlwind  and  the  fire,  and  his  as 
the  still  small  voice  whicli  followed.  In  that  old  time  God 
was  teaching  his  people.  He  was  teaching  also  the  nations 
with  whom  his  people  were  brought  wonderfully  into  con- 
tact, that  He  who  had  entered  into  covenant  with  one 
among  all  the  nations,  was  not  one  God  among  many,  the 
God  of  the  hills,  or  the  God  of  the  plains  (i  Kin.  xx.  23), 
but  that  the  God  of  Israel  was  the  Lord  of  the  whole 
earth,  who  wielded  all  its  elements  at  his  will. 

But  Israel  at  the  time  of  the  Incarnation  had  thoroughly 
learned  that  lesson,  much  else  as  it  had  still  to  learn : 
and  the  whole  civilized  world  had  practically  outgrown 
polytheism,  however  as  the  popular  superstition  it  may 
have  lingered  still.  And  thus  the  works  of  our  Lord, 
though  they  bear  not  on  their  front  the  imposing  charac- 
ter Avhich  did  those  of  old,  yet  contain  higher  and  deeper 
truths.  They  are  eminently  miracles  of  the  Incarnation, 
of  the  Son  of  God  who  had  taken  our  flesh,  and  who, 
having  taken,  would  heal  it.  They  have  predominantly  a 
relation  to  man's  body  and  his  spirit.  Miracles  of  nature 
assume  now  altogether  a  subordinate  place  :  they  still 
survive,  even  as  we  could  ill  afford  wholly  to  have  lost 
them ;  for  this  region  of  nature  must  still  be  claimed  as 
part  of  Christ's  dominion,  though  not  its  chiefest  or  its 

'  We  find  tlie  false  Christs,  who  were  so  plentiful  about  the  time  of 
our  Lord's  coming,  professing  and  promising  to  do  exactly  the  same 
works  as  those  wrought  of  yore, — to  repeat  even  on  a  larger  scale  these 
Old-Testament  miracles.  Thus  '  that  Egyptian  '  whom  the  Roman  tri- 
bune supposed  that  he  saw  in  Paul  (Acts  xxi.  38),  and  of  whom  Josephus 
gives  us  a  fuller  account  (Antt.  xx.  8,  6),  led  a  tumultuous  crowd  to  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  promising  to  show  them  from  thence  how,  as  a  second 
and  a  greater  Joshua,  he  would  cause  the  walls,  not  of  Jericho,  but  of 
Jerusalem,  to  fall  to  the  ground  at  his  bidding.  See  Vitringa,  De  Signi* 
a  Messid  edmdis  in  his  Obss.  Sac,  vol.  i.  p.  482. 


WITH  OTHER   CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.         43 

noblest  province.  But  man,  and  not  nature,  is  now  the 
main  subject  of  these  mighty  powers  ;  and  thus  it  comes 
to  pass  that,  with  less  of  outward  pomp,  less  to  startle 
and  amaze,  the  new  have  a  far  deeper  inward  significance 
than  the  old.' 


2.  The  Miracles  op  the  Apocryphal  Gospels. 

The  apocryphal  gospels,  abject  productions  as,  whether 
contemplated  in  a  literary  or  moral  point  of  view,  they 
must  be  allowed  to  be,  are  yet  instructive  in  this  respect, 
that  they  show  us  what  manner  of  gospels  were  the  re- 
sult, when  men  drew  from  their  own  fancy,  and  devised 
Christs  of  their  own,  instead  of  resting  upon  the  basis  of 
historic  truth,  and  delivering  to  the  world  faithful  records 
of  Him  who  indeed  had  lived  and  died  among  them.  Here, 
as  ever,  the  glory  of  the  true  comes  out  into  strongest 
light  by  its  comparison  with  the  false.  But  in  nothing, 
perhaps,  are  these  apocryphal  gospels  more  worthy  of 
note,  than  in  the  difference  between  the  main  features  of 
their  miracles  and  of  those  of  the  canonical  Gospels. 
Thus  in  the  canonical,  the  miracle  is  indeed  essential,  but, 
at  the  same  time,  ever  subordinated  to  the  doctrine  which 
it  confirms, — a  link  in  the  great  chain  of  God's  manifesta- 
tion of  Himself  to  men ;  its  ethical  significance  never  falls 
into  the  background,  but  the  wonder-work  of  grace  and 
power  has,  in  every  case  where  this  can  find  room,  nearer 
or  remoter  reference  to  the  moral  condition  of  the  person 
or  persons  in  whose  behalf  it  is  Avrought.  The  miracles 
ever  lead  us  off  from  themselves  to  their  Author ;  they 
appear  as  emanations  from  the  glory  of  the  Son  of  God ; 
but  it  is  in  Him  we  rest,  and  not  in  them ;  they  are  but 

*  Julian  the  Apostate  had  indeed  so  little  an  eye  for  the  gloiy  of  such 
works  as  these,  that  in  one  place  he  says  (Cyril,  Ado.  Jul.  vi.),  Jesus  did 
nothing  wonderful,  '  unless  any  should  esteem  that  to  have  healed  some 
lame  and  blii.d,  and  exorci.sed  some  demoniacs  in  Tillages  like  Bethsaida 
and  Bethany,  were  very  wonderful  works.' 
4 


44  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

tlie  halo  round  Him,  and  derive  their  worth  from  Him, 
not  contrariwise  He  from  them.  They  are  held,  too,  to- 
gether by  his  strong  and  central  personality,  which  does 
not  leave  them  a  conglomerate  of  marvellous  anecdotes 
accidentally  heaped  together,  but  parts  of  a  vast  organic 
whole,  of  which  every  part  is  in  vital  coherence  with  all 
other.  But  it  is  altogether  otherwise  in  these  apocryphal 
narratives.  To  say  that  the  miracles  occupy  in  them  the 
foremost  place  would  very  inadequately  express  the  facts 
of  the  case.  They  are  everything.  Some  of  these  so- 
called  histories  are  nothing  else  but  a  string  of  these ; 
which  yet  (and  this  too  is  singularly  charactei'istic)  stand 
wholly  disconnected  from  the  ministry  of  Christ.  Not  one 
of  them  belongs  to  the  period  after  his  Baptism,  but  they 
are  all  miracles  of  the  Infancy, — in  other  words,  of  that 
time  whereof  the  canonical  history  relates  no  miracle,  and 
not  merely  does  not  relate  any,  but  is  at  pains  to  tell  us 
that  during  it  no  miracle  was  ■wrought,  the  miracle  in 
Cana  of  Galilee  being  his  first  (John  ii.  ii). 

It  follows  of  necessity  that  they  are  never  seals  of  a 
word  and  doctrine  which  has  gone  before ;  they  are  never 
*  signs,'  but  at  the  best  wonders  and  portents.  Every 
higher  purpose  and  aim  is  absent  from  them  altogether. 
It  is  never  felt  that  the  writer  is  writing  out  of  any  higher 
motive  than  to  excite  and  feed  a  childish  love  of  the  mar- 
vellous, never  that  he  could  say,  *  These  are  written  that 
ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
and  that  believing  ye  might  have  life  through  his  name  ' 
(John  XX.  31).  Indeed,  so  far  from  having  a  religious,  they 
are  often  wanting  in  an  ethical  element.^  The  Lord  Jesus 
appears  in  them  as  a  wayward,  capricious,  passionate 
child ;  to  be  feared  indeed,  seeing  that  He  is  furnished 
with  such  formidable  powers  of  avenging  every  wrong  or 
accidental  injury  which  He  meets,  every  offence  which  He 

^  See  ou  tliia  matter  Nicolas,  Etude  sur  les  Evangiles  ApoerypheSf  Paiis, 
1865. 


WITH  OTHER   CYCLES  OF  MIRACLES.         45 

may  take ;  and  so  bearing-  Himself,  that  tlie  request  wliicb 
tlie  parents  of  some  other  children  are  represented  as 
making-,  that  He  may  be  kept  within  the  house,  for  He 
brings  harm  and  mischief  wherever  He  comes,  is  perfectly 
justified  by  the  facts. 

It  may  be  well  to  cite  a  few  examples  in  proof,  however 
harshly  some  of  them  may  jar  on  the  Christian  ear.  Thus 
some  children  refase  to  play  with  Him,  hiding  themselves 
from  Him ;  He  pursues  and  turns  them  into  kids.'  An- 
other child  by  accident  runs  against  Him,  and  throws  Him 
down;  whereupon  He,  being  exasperated,''  exclaims,  *As 
thou  hast  made  Me  to  fall,  so  shalt  thou  fall  and  not  rise;' 
at  the  same  hour  the  child  fell  down  and  expired.'  He 
has  a  dispute  with  the  master  who  is  teaching  Him  letters, 
concerning  the  order  in  which  He  shall  qo  through  the 
Hebrew  alphabet,  and  his  master  strikes  Him  ;  whereupon 
Jesus  curses  him,  and  straightway  his  arm  is  withered,  he 
falls  on  his  face  and  dies.''  This  goes'  on,  till  at  length 
Joseph  says  to  Mary,  'Henceforward  let  us  keep  Him  withm 
doors,  for  whosoever  sets  himself  aga,inst  Him  perishes.' 
His  passionate  readiness  to  avenge  Himself  shows  itself 
at  the  very  earliest  age.  At  five  years  old  He  has  made  a 
pool  of  water,  and  is  moulding  sparrows  from  the  clay. 
Another  child,  the  son  of  a  scribe,  displeased  that  He 
should  do  this  on  the  Sabbath,  opens  the  sluices  of  his 
pool  and  lets  out  the  water.  On  this  Jesus  is  indignant, 
gives  him  many  injurious  names,  and  causes  him  to  wither 
and  wholly  dry  up  with  his  curse.®     Such  is  the  image 

^  Eva)ig.  Infant.  40,  in  Thilo's  Codex  Apocryphus,  p.  1 1 5  ;  to  whose  ex- 
cellent edition  of  the  apocryphal  gospels  the  references  in  this  section 
are  made  throughout. 

"   Wii:pavcttc, 

2  Emng.  Infant.  47,  p.  123  ;  cf.  Evang.  Thoin.  4,  p.  284. 

*  Ecang.  Infant.  49,  p.  125.  In  the  Emng.  Thorn.  14,  p.  307,  he  only 
falls  into  a  swoon,  and  something  afterwards  pleasing  Jesus  (15),  ho 
raises  him  up  again. 

*  Evang.  Thorn.  3,  p.  282.  This  appears  with  variations  in  the  Evang. 
Infant.  4.6,  p.  122. 


46  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

which  the  authors  of  these  boots  give  us  of  the  holy 
child  Jesus; — and  yet  we  need  not  wonder;  for  man  is 
not  only  unable  to  realize  the  perfect,  he  is  unable  to  con- 
ceive it.  The  idea  is  as  much  a  gift,  as  the  power  to 
realize  that  idea.  Even  the  miracles  which  are  not  of 
this  revolting  character  are  childish  tricks,  like  the  tricks 
of  a  conjuror,  never  solemn  acts  of  power  and  love.  Jesus 
enters  the  shop  of  a  dyer,  who  has  received  various  cloths 
from  various  persons  to  be  dyed  of  divers  colours.  In  the 
absence  of  the  master,  He  throws  them  all  into  the  dyeing 
vat  together,  and  when  the  dyer  returns  and  remonstrates, 
draws  them  out  of  the  vat,  each  dyed  according  to  the 
colour  which  was  enjoined.^  He  and  some  other  children 
make  birds  and  animals  of  clay ;  while  each  is  boasting 
the  superiority  of  his  work,  Jesus  says,  '  I  will  cause 
those  which  I  have  made  to  go ; ' — which  they  do,  the 
animals  leaping  and  the  birds  flying,  and  at  his  bidding 
returning,  and  eating  and  drinking  from  his  hand.^ 
While  yet  an  infant  at  his  mother's  breast,  He  bids  a 
palm-tree  to  stoop  that  she  may  pluck  the  dates ;  it  obeys, 
and  only  returns  to  its  position  at  his  command.^  His 
mother  sends  Him  to  the  well  for  water;  the  pitcher 
breaks,  and  He  brings  the  water  in  his  cloak.*  And  as 
the  miracles  which  He  does,  so  those  that  are  done  in 
regard  of  Him,  are  idle  or  monstrous ;  the  ox  and  the  ass 
worshipping  him,  a  new-bom  infant  in  the  crib,  may  serve 
for  an  example.^ 

In  all  these,  as  will  be  observed,  the  idea  of  redemptive 
acts  is  wanting  altogether ;  they  are  none  of  them  the 
outward  clothing  of  the  inward  facts  of  man's  redemption. 
Of  course  it  is  not  meant  to  be  aflSrmed  that  miracles  of 
healing  and  of  grace  are  altogether  absent  from  these 
books  ;  ^  that  would  evidently  have  been  incompatible  with 

*  Evang.  Infant.  37,  p,  iii. 

"^  Ibid.  36.  3  ji^i^  p.  395.  *■  Ibid.  p.  121, 

*  Ibid.  p.  382. 

«  For  instnnce,  Simon  the  Canaanite  (ibid.  p.  117)  is  healed,  while  yet 
a  child,  of  the  bite  of  a  serpent.     Yet  even  in  miracles  such  as  this  there 


WITH  or  HER   CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.         47 

any  idea  of  a  Eedeemer  ;  but  only  that  they  do  not  present 
to  us  any  clear  and  consistent  image  of  a  Saviour  full  of 
grace  and  power,  but  an  image  rather,  continually  dis- 
torted and  defaced  by  lines  of  passion  and  caprice,  of 
peevishness  and  anger.  The  most  striking,  perhaps,  of 
the  miracles  related  in  regard  of  the  child  Jesus,  is  that 
of  the  falling  down  of  the  idols  of  Egypt  at  his  presence 
in  the  land  ;  for  it  has  in  it  something  of  a  deeper  signifi- 
cance, as  a  symbol  and  prophecy  of  the  overthrow  of  the 
idol  worship  of  the  world  by  Him  who  was  now  coming 
into  the  world.'  Again,  the  lions  and  the  leopards  gather- 
ing harmlessly  round  Him  as  He  passed  through  the  desert 
on  the  way  to  Egypt,  is  not  alien  to  the  true  spirit  of  the 
Gospel,  and  has  its  analogy  in  the  words  of  St.  Mark,  that 
He  '  was  with  the  wild-beasts  '  (i.  1 3)  ;  words  not  intro- 
duced merely  to  enhance  the  savageness  of  the  wilderness 
where  He  spent  those  forty  days  of  temptation,  but  a  hint 
to  us  that  in  Him,  the  new  head  of  the  race,  the  second 
Adam,  the  Paradisaical  state  was  once  more  given  back 
(Gen.  i.  28).  But  with  a  very  few  such  partial  exceptions 
as  these,  the  apocryphal  gospels  are  a  barren  and  dreary 
waste  of  wonders  without  object  or  aim ;  and  only  instruc- 
tive as  making  us  strongly  to  feel,  more  strongly  than  but 
for  these  examples  we  might  have  felt,  how  needful  are 
other  factors  besides  power  for  the  producing  of  a  true 
miracle ;  that  wisdom  and  love  must  be  there  also ;  that 
where  men  conceive  of  power  as  its  chiefest  element,  they 
give  us  only  a  hateful  mockery  of  the  divine.  Had  a 
Christ,  such  as  these  gospels  portray,  actually  lived  upon 
the  earth,  he  had  been  no  more  than  a  potent  and  wayward 
magician,  from  whom  all  men  would  have  shrunk  with  a 
natural  instinct  of  distrust  and  fear. 

is  always  sometliing  that  will  not  let  us  forget  that  we  are  moving  in 
another  world  from  that  in  which  the  sacred  Evangelists  plant  us. 
*  Evang,  Infant,  10-12,  pp.  75-77 ;  cf.  i  Sam.  v.  3,  4. 


48  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

3.  The  Later,  or  Ecclesiastical,  Miracles. 

It  would  plainly  lead  much  too  far  from  the  subject  ir 
hand  to  enter  into  any  detailed  examination  of  the 
authority  with  which  the  later,  or,  as  they  may  be  con- 
veniently termed,  the  ecclesiastical,  miracles  come  to  us 
the  claims  they  have  on  our  belief.  Yet  a  few  words  musl 
of  necessity  find  place  concerning  the  permanent  miracul- 
ous gifts  which  have  been  challenged  for  the  Church  as  hei 
rightful  heritage,  alike  by  some  who  have  gloried  in  their 
presumed  presence,  and  by  others  who  have  lamented 
their  absence — by  those  who  have  seen  in  their  presence 
the  evidences  of  her  sanctity,  or  in  their  absence,  of  her 
degeneracy  and  fall.  It  is  not  my  belief  that  she  has  this 
gift  of  working  miracles,  nor  yet  that  she  was  intended  to 
have,  and  only  through  'her  own  unfaithfulness  has  lost, 
it ;  nor  that  her  Lord  has  abridged  her  of  aught  that 
would  have  made  her  strong  and  glorious  in  not  endowing 
her  with  powers  such  as  these.  With  reasons  enough  foi 
humbling  herself,  I  cannot  think  that  among  those  is  to 
be  reckoned  her  inability  to  perform  these  works  that 
should  transcend  nature.  So  many  in  our  own  day  have 
arrived  at  a  directly  opposite  conclusion,  that  it  will  be 
needful  shortly  to  justify  the  opinion  here  exprest. 

And  first,  as  a  strong  presumption  against  the  intended 
continuance  of  these  powers  in  the  Church,  may  be  taken 
the  analogies  derived  from  the  earlier  history  of  God's 
dealings  with  his  people.  We  do  not  find  the  miracles 
sown  broadcast  over  the  whole  Old-Testament  history, 
but  they  all  cluster  round  a  very  few  eminent  persons,  and 
have  reference  to  certain  great  epochs  and  crises  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Abraham,  the  'friend  of  God'  and 
'father  of  the  faithful,' — David,  the  theocratic  king, — 
Daniel,  the  '  man  greatly  beloved,'  are  alike  entirely  with- 
out them ;  that  is,  they  do  no  miracles ;  such  may  be  ac- 
complished in  their  behalf,  but  they  themselves  accomplish 


WITH  OTHER   CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.         49 

none.  In  fact  there  are  but  two  great  outbursts  of 
these  ;  the  first,  at  the  establishing  of  the  kingdom  under 
Moses  and  Joshua,  when,  as  at  once  is  evident,  they  could 
not  have  been  wanting  ;  the  second  in  the  time  of  Elijah 
and  Elisha ;  that  also  a  time  of  the  utmost  need,  when, 
the  Levitical  priesthood  being  abolished,  and  the  faithful 
only  a  scattered  few  among  the  ten  tribes,  it  was  a  ques- 
tion whether  the  court-religion  which  the  apostate  kings 
of  Israel  had  set  up,  should  not  quite  overbear  the  true 
worship  of  Jehovah.  Then,  in  that  decisive  epoch  of  the 
kingdom's  history,  the  two  great  prophets,  they  too  in  a 
subordinate  sense  the  beginners  of  a  new  period,  arose, 
equipped  with  powers  which  should  witness  that  He  whose 
servants  they  were,  was  the  God  of  Israel,  however  Israel 
might  refuse  to  acknowledge  Him.  There  is  in  all  this 
an  entire  absence  of  prodigality  in  the  employment  of 
miracles ;  they  are  ultimate  resources,  reserved  for  the 
great  needs  of  God's  kingdom,  not  its  daily  incidents ; 
they  are  not  cheap  off-hand  expedients,  which  may  always 
be  appealed  to,  but  come  only  into  play  when  nothing  else 
would  have  supplied  th«ir  room.  How  unlike  this  modera- 
tion to  the  wasteful  expenditure  of  miracles  in  the  legends 
of  the  middle  ages !  There  no  perplexity  can  occur  so 
trifling  that  a  miracle  will  not  be  brought  in  to  solve  it ; 
there  almost  no  saint,  certainly  no  distinguished  one,  is 
without  his  nimhus  of  miracles  around  his  head  ;  they  are 
adorned  with  these  in  rivalry  with  one  another,  in  rivalry 
with  Christ  Himself.  That  remarkable  acknowledgment, 
'John  did  no  miracle'  (John  x.  41),  finds  no  parallel  in 
the  records  of  their  lives. 

We  must  add  to  this  the  declarations  of  Scripture,  which 
I  have  already  treated  at  large,  on  the  object  of  miracles, 
that  they  are  for  the  confirming  the  word  by  signs  follow- 
ing, for  authenticating  a  message  as  being  from  heaven — 
that  signs  are  for  the  unbelieving  (i  Cor.  xiv.  22).  What 
do   they   then   in   a   Christendom  ?     It    may   indeed   be 


50  THE  EVANGELICAL,   COMPARED 

answered,  that  in  it  are  unbelievers  still ;  yet  not  in  the 
sense  in  which  St.  Paul  uses  the  word,  for  he  means  not 
the  positively  unbelieving,  not  those  that  in  heart  and  will 
are  estranged  from  the  truth,  but  the  negatively,  and.  that, 
because  the  truth  has  never  yet  sufficiently  accredited 
itself  to  them ;  the  ama-Toi,  not  the  aTrsidcis.  Signs  are 
not  for  these  last,  the  positively  unbelieving,  since,  as  we 
have  seen,  they  will  exercise  no  power  over  those  who 
harden  themselves  against  the  truth  ; — such  will  resist  or 
evade  them  as  surely  as  they  will  resist  or  evade  ever}' 
other  witness  of  God's  presence  in  the  world  ; — but  for  the 
unbelieving  who  hitherto  have  been  such  by  no  fault  of 
their  own,  for  them  to  whom  the  truth  is  now  coming  for 
the  first  time.  And  if  not  even  for  them  now, — as  they 
exist,  for  instance,  in  a  heathen  land, — we  may  sufficiently 
account  for  this  by  the  fact  that  the  Church  of  Christ, 
with  its  immense  and  evident  superiorities  of  all  kinds 
over  everything  with  which  it  is  brought  in  contact,  and 
some  portions  of  which  superiority  every  man  must  recog- 
nize, is  itself  now  the  great  witness  and.  proof  of  the  truth 
which  it  delivers.  The  truth,  therefore,  has  no  longer 
need  to  vindicate  itself  by  an  appeal  to  something  else ; 
but  the  position  which  it  has  won  in  the  very  forefront  of 
the  world  is  itself  its  vindication  now,  and  suffices  to  give 
it  a  first  claim  on  every  man's  attention. 

And.  then  further,  all  that  we  might  ourselves  before- 
hand presume  from  the  analogy  of  external  things  leads 
us  to  the  same  conclusions.  We  find  all  beginning  to  be 
wonderful — to  be  under  laws  different  from,  and  higher 
than,  those  which  regulate  ulterior  progress.  Thus  the 
powers  evermore  at  work  for  the  upholding  the  natural 
world  would  have  been  manifestly  insufficient  for  its  first 
creation ;  there  were  other  which  must  have  presided  at 
its  birth,  but  which  now,  having  done  their  work,  have 
fallen,  back,  and  left  it  to  its  ordinary  development.  The 
multitudinous  races  of  animals  which  people  the  earth, 


yVITIT  OTHER   CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.  51 

and  of -plants  which  clothe  it,  needed  infinitely  more  foi 
their  first  production  than  suffices  for  their  present  up- 
holding. It  is  only  according  to  the  analogies  of  that 
which  thus  everywhere  surrounds  us,  to  presume  that  it 
was  even  so  with  the  beginnings  of  the  spiritual  creation 
■ — the  Christian  Church.  It  is  unquestionably  so  with 
the  beginnings  of  that  new  creation  in  any  single  heart. 
Then,  in  the  regeneration,  the  strongest  tendencies  of  the 
old  nature  are  overborne ;  the  impossible  has  become  pos- 
sible, in  some  measure  easy ;  by  a  mighty  wonder-stroke 
of  grace  the  polarity  in  the  man  is  shifted ;  the  flesh, 
that  was  the  positive  pole,  has  become  the  negative,  and 
the  spirit,  which  was  before  the  negative,  is  henceforth  the 
positive.  Shall  we  count  it  strange,  then,  that  the  coming 
in  of  a  new  order,  not  into  a  single  heart,  but  into  the 
entire  world — a  new  order  bursting  forcibly  through  the 
bonds  and  hindrances  of  the  old,  should  have  been  won- 
derful ?  It  would  have  been  inexplicable  if  it  had  been 
otherwise.  The  son  of  Joseph  might  have  lived  and  died, 
and  done  no  miracles  :  but  the  Virgin-born,  the  Son  of  the 
Most  Highest,  Himself  the  middle  point  of  all  wonder, — 
for  Him  to  have  done  none,  herein,  indeed,  had  been  the 
greatest  marvel  of  all. 

But  this  new  order,  having  not  only  declared  but  consti- 
tuted itself,  having  asserted  that  it  is  not  of  any  inevitable 
necessity  bound  by  the  heavy  laws  of  the  old,  henceforth 
submits  itself  in  outward  things,  and  for  the  present  time, 
to  those  laws.  All  its  true  glory,  which  is  its  inward,  it 
retains;  but  these  powers,  which  are  not  the  gift — for 
Christ  Himself  is  the  gift — but  the  signs  of  the  gift,  it 
foregoes.  *  Miracles,'  says  Fuller,  *  are  the  swaddling 
clothes  of  the  infant  Churches ;  *  and,  we  may  add,  not 
the  garments  of  the  full  grown.  They  were  as  the  pro- 
clamation that  the  king  was  mounting  his  throne ;  who, 
however,  is  not  proclaimed  every  day,  but  only  at  his 
accession :  when  he  sits  acknowledgred  on  his  throne,  the 


52  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

proclamation  ceases.  They  were  as  tlie  bright  clouds 
which  gather  round,  and  announce  the  sun  at  his  first 
appearing :  his  mid-day  splendour,  though  as  full,  and 
indeed  fuller,  of  light  and  heat,  knows  not  those  bright 
heralds  and  harbingers  of  his  rising.  Or  they  may  he 
likened  to  the  temporary  framework  on  which  the  arch  is 
rounded,  a  framework  taken  down  so  soon  as  that  is  com- 
pleted. That  the  Church  has  had  these  wonders, — that  its 
first  birth  was,  like  that  of  its  wondrous  Pounder,  wonder- 
ful,— of  this  it  preserves  a  record  and  attestation  in  the 
Scriptures  of  truth.  The  miracles  recorded  there  live 
for  the  Church ;  they  are  as  much  present  witnesses  for 
Christ  to  us  now  as  to  them  who  actually  saw  them  with 
their  eyes.  For  they  were  done  once,  that  they  might  be 
believed  always  ;  that  we,  having  in  the  Gospels  the  lively 
representation  of  our  Lord  portrayed  for  us,  might  as 
surely  believe  that  He  was  the  ruler  of  nature,  the  healer 
of  the  body,  the  Lord  of  life  and  of  death,  as  though  we 
had  actually  ourselves  seen  Him  allay  a  storm,  or  heal  a 
leper,  or  raise  one  dead. 

Moreover,  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  later  miracles 
presented  to  our  belief  bear  inward  marks  of  spuriousness. 
The  miracles  of  Scripture, — and  among  these,  not  so  much 
the  miracles  of  the  Old  Covenant  as  the  miracles  of  Christ 
and  his  Apostles,  being  the  miracles  of  that  highest  and 
latest  dispensation  under  which  we  live, — we  have  a  right 
to  consider  as  normal,  in  their  chief  features  at  least,  for 
all  future  miracles,  if  such  were  to  continue  in  the  Church. 
The  details,  the  local  colouring,  might  be  different,  and 
there  would  be  no  need  to  be  perplexed  at  such  a  difference 
appearing ;  yet  the  later  must  not,  in  their  inner  spirit, 
be  totally  unlike  the  earlier,  or  they  will  carry  the  sentence 
of  condemnation  on  their  front.  They  must  not,  for  in- 
stance, lead  us  back  under  the  bondage  of  the  senses, 
while  those  other  were  ever  framed  to  release  fiom  that 
bondage.     They  must  not  be  aimless  and  objectless,  fan- 


WITH   or  TIER    CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.  53 

tastic  freaks  of  power,  wliile  those  liad  every  one  of  them 
a  meaning  and  distinct  ethical  aim, — were  bridges  by 
which  Christ  found  access  from  men's  bodies  to  their  souls, 
— manifestations  of  his  glory,  that  men  might  be  drawn  to 
the  glory  itself.  They  must  not  be  ludicrous  and  grotesque, 
saintly  jests,  while  those  were  evermore  reverent  and 
solemn  and  awful.  And  lastly,  they  must  not  be  seals  and 
witnesses  to  aught  which  the  conscience,  enlightened  by 
the  Word  and  Spirit  of  God, — whereunto  is  the  ultimate 
appeal,  and  which  stands  above  the  miracle,  and  not 
beneath  it, — protests  against  as  untrue  (the  innumerable 
Romish  miracles  which  attest  transubstantiation),  or  as 
error  largely  mingling  with  the  truth  (the  miracles  which 
go  to  uphold  the  whole  Eomish  system),  those  other  having 
set  their  seal  only  to  the  absolutely  true.  Miracles  with 
these  marks  upon  them  we  are  bound  by  all  which  we 
hold  most  sacred,  by  all  which  the  Word  of  God  has 
taught  us,  to  reject  and  to  refuse.  It  is  for  the  reader, 
tolerably  acquainted  with  the  Church-history  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  to  judge  how  many  of  its  miracles  will,  if  these  tests 
be  acknowledged  and  applied,  at  once  fall  away,  and,  fail- 
ing to  fulfil  these  primary  conditions,  will  have  no  right 
even  to  be  considered  any  further.' 

*  The  results  are  curious,  which  sometimes  are  come  to  through  the 
following  up  to  their  first  sources  the  biographies  of  eminent  Romish 
saints.  Tholuck  has  done  this  in  regard  of  Ignatius  Loyola  and  Francis 
Xavier;  and  to  him  {Venn.  Schnft.  pp.  50-57)  I  am  mainly  indebted 
for  the  materials  of  the  following  note. — Few,  perluips,  have  been  sur- 
rounded with  such  a  halo  of  wonders  as  the  two  great  pillars  of  the 
order  of  the  Jesuits,  Loyohx  and  Xavier.  Upwards  of  two  hundred 
miracles  of  Loyola  were  laid  before  the  Pope,  when  his  canonization  was 
in  question, — miracles  beside  which  those  of  our  Lord  shrink  into  insig- 
nificance. If  Christ  by  his  word  and  look  rebuked  and  expelled  demons, 
Ignatius  did  the  same  by  a  letter.  If  Christ  walked  once  upon  the  sea, 
Ignatius  many  times  in  the  air.  If  Christ,  by  his  countenance  shining  as 
the  sun  and  his  glistering  garments,  once  amazed  his  disciples,  Ignatius 
did  it  frequently,  and,  entering  into  dark  chambers,  could,  by  his  presence, 
light  them  up  as  with  candles.  If  sacred  history  records  three  persons 
whom  Christ  raised  from  the  dead,  the  number  which  Xavier  raised 
exceeds  all  count.     In  like  manner  the  miracles  of  his  great  namesake  of 


54  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

Very  interesting  is  it  to  observe  how  the  men  who  in 
some  sort  fell  in  with  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  their  age 
(for,  indeed,  who  escapes  them?),  yet  did  ever,  in  their 

Assisi  rivalled,  wheu  they  did  not  leave  behind,  those  of  Christ.  The 
author  of  the  Liber  Cunformitatum,  writing  of  him  less  than  a  century 
after  his  death,  brings  out  these  conformities  of  the  Master  and  the 
servant :  Hie  sicut  Jesus  aquam  in  vinum  convertit,  panes  multiplicavit, 
et  de  navicuhi  in  medio  fluctuum  maris  miraculose  immota,  per  se  a  terra 
abducta,  docuit  turbas  audientes  in  littore.  Huie  omnis  creatura  quasi 
ad  nutum  videbatur  parere,  ac  si  in  ipso  esset  status  innocentise  restitu- 
tus.  Et  ut  cetera  taceani :  csecos  illuminavit ;  surdos,  claudos,  para- 
lyticos,  ouuiium  infirmitatum  generibus  laborantes  curavit,  leprosos 
mundavit;  dnemones  eftugavit ;  captivos  eripuit;  naufragis  succurrit,  et 
quam  plures  morluos  suscitavit  (Gieseler,  Lehrbuch  der  KirchengeschicJite, 
vol.  ii.  part  ii.  p.  355).  But  to  return  to  Ignatius,  and  the  historic  evi- 
dence of  his  miracles.  Ribadeneira,  from  early  youth  his  scholar  and 
companion,  published,  fifteen  years  after  his  death,  in  1572,  a  life  of  his 
departed  master  aud  friend;  which  book  appeared  again  in  1587,  aug- 
mented with  much  additional  matter  communicated  by  persons  who, 
having  lived  in  familiar  intercourse  with  Ignatius,  must  have  been  well 
acquainted  with  all  the  facts  of  his  life  (gravissimi  viri  et  Ignatio  valde 
familiares).  Notably  enough,  neither  in  the  first,  nor  yet  in  the  second 
so  greatly  enlarged  edition,  does  the  slightest  trace  of  a  miracle  appear. 
So  far  from  this,  the  biographer  discusses  at  length  the  reasons  why  it 
did  not  please  God  that  miracles  should  be  wrought  by  this  eminent 
servant  of  his :  Sed  dicat  aliquis,  si  hnec  vera  sunt,  ut  profecto  sunt, 
quid  causte  est,  quam  ob  rem  illius  sanctitas  minus  est  testata  miraculis, 
et,  ut  multurum  Sanctorum  vita,  signis  declarata,  virtutumque  opera- 
tionibus  insignita  ?  Cui  ego ;  Quis  cognovit  sensum  Domini,  aut  quis 
conciliarius  ejus  fuit?  Ille  enim  est  qui  facit  mirabilia  magna  solus, 
propterea  illius  tantummodo  infinita  virtute  fieri  possunt,  qusecumque 
aut  naturae  vim  aut  modum  excedunt.  Et  ut  solus  ille  heec  potest  efli- 
cere,  ita  ille  solus  novit,  quo  loco,  quo  tempore  miracula  et  quorum 
precibus  facienda  sint.  Sed  tamen  neque  omnes  saucti  viri  miraculis 
excelluerunt ;  neque  qui  illorum  aut  magnitudine  praestiterunt,  aut  copia, 
idcirco  reliquos  sanctitate  superarunt.  Non  enim  sanctitas  cuj usque 
signis,  sed  caritate  sestimanda  est.  Two  years  before  the  appearance  of 
the  second  edition,  in  1585,  Maffei,  styled  the  Jesuit  Livy,  published  at 
Rome  his  work,  De  Vita  et  Moribus  S.  Jgnatii  Loyolce  Libri  tres ;  and 
neither  in  this  is  aught  related  of  the  great  founder  of  the  Order,  which 
deserves  the  name  of  a  miracle,  although  here  are  some  nearer  approaches 
to  such  than  in  the  earlier  biography — remarkable  intimations,  as  of  the 
death  or  recovery  of  friends,  glimpses  of  their  beatified  state,  ecstatic 
visions  in  which  Christ  appeared  to  him;  but  even  these  introduced  in 
a  half-apologetic  tone,  the  historian  evidently  declining  to  pledge  him- 
self to  their  truth :  Non  pauca  de  eodem  admirabilia  prcedicanttir,  quo- 
rum aliqua  nobis  hoc  loco  exponere  visum  est.  But  with  miracles  far 
more  astounding  and  more  numerous  the  Romish  church  has  surrounded 


WITH  OTHER    CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.         55 

hig-her  moods,  with  truest  Cliristian  insight,  witness  against 
those  very  tendencies  by  which  they,  with  the  rest  of  their 
contemporaries,  were  more  or  less  borne  away.  Thus  was 
it  with  regard  to  the  over-valuing  of  miracles,  the  esteem- 
ing of  them  as  the  only  evidences  of  an  exalted  sanctity. 
Against  this  what  an  unbroken  testimony  in  all  ages  of 
the  Church  was  borne ;  not,  indeed,  sufficient  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  an  error  into  which  the  sense- bound  generations 
of  men  only  too  naturally  fall,  yet  witnessing  that  the 
Church  herself  was  ever  conscious  that  the  holy  life  was  in 
the  sight  of  God  of  higher  price  than  the  wonderful  works 
— that  love  is  the  greatest  miracle  of  all — that  to  overcome 
the  world,  this  is  the  greatest  manifestation  of  the  power 
of  Christ  in  his  servants.^  Upon  this  subject  one  passage 
from  Chrysostom,  in  place  of  the  many  that  might  be 
quoted,  and  even  that  greatly  abridged,  must  suffice.*  He 
is  rebuking  the  faithful,  that  now,  when  their  numbers 
were  so  large,  they  did  so  little  to  leaven  the  world,  and 
this,  when  the  Apostles,  who  were  but  twelve,  effected  so 
much ;  and  he  puts  aside  the  excuse,  *  But  they  had 
miracles  at  command,'  not  with  the  answer, '  So  have  we ; ' 
but   in   this   language :    '  How   long   shall  we   use   their 

bis  great  scholar,  Francis  Xavier.  Miracles  were  as  his  daily  food ;  to 
raise  the  dead  was  as  common  as  to  heal  the  sick.  Even  the  very  boys 
who  served  him  as  catechists  received  and  exercised  a  similar  power  of 
working  wonders.  Now  there  are,  I  believe,  no  historic  documents 
whatever,  of  a  contemporary  date,  which  profet^s  to  vouch  for  these. 
We  have  further  a  series  of  letters  written  by  this  great  apostle  to  the 
heathen,  out  of  the  midst  of  his  work  in  the  far  East  ( S.  Frnncisei 
Xaverii  Epistularvm  Lihri  ires;  Pragae,  1750);  letters  showing  him  to 
have  been  one  of  the  discreetest,  as  he  was  one  of  the  most  fervent, 
preachers  of  Christ  that  ever  lived,  and  full  of  admirable  hints  for  the 
missionary ;  but  of  miracles  wrought  by  himself,  of  miracles  which  the 
missionary  may  expect  in  aid  of  his  work,  there  occurs  not  a  single 
word. 

*  Thus  compare  Augustine's  admirable  treatment  of  the  subject, 
Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxx.,  beginning  with  the  words  :  Ergo  sunt  homines,  quos 
delectat  miraculum  facere,  et  ab  eis  qui  profecerunt  in  Ecclesia  miraculum 
exigunt,  et  ipsi  qui  quasi  profecisse  sibi  videntur,  talia  volant  facere,  et 
putant  se  ad  Deum  non  pertinere,  si  non  fecerint. 

^  Horn.  xlvi.  in  Matth, 


56  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

miracles  as  a  pretext  for  our  slotli?  "And  what  was 
it  then,"  you  say,  "  which  made  the  Apostles  so  great?  " 
I  answer.  This,  that  they  contemned  money ;  that  they 
trampled  on  vain-glory ;  that  they  renounced  the  world. 
If  they  had  not  done  thus,  but  had  been  slaves  of  their 
passions,  though  they  had  raised  a  thousand  dead,  they 
would  not  merely  have  profited  nothing,  but  would  have 
been  counted  as  impostors.  What  miracle  did  John,  who 
reformed  so  many  cities,  of  whom  yet  it  is  expressly  said, 
that  he  did  no  sign  ?  And  thou,  if  thou  hadst  thy  choice, 
to  raise  the  dead  in  the  name  of  Christ,  or  thyself  to  die 
for  his  name,  which  wouldst  thou  choose  ?  Would  it  not 
be  plainly  the  latter  ?  And  yet  that  were  a  miracle,  and 
this  is  but  a  ivorJc,  And  if  one  gave  thee  the  choice  of 
turning  all  grass  into  gold,  or  being  able  to  despise  all  gold 
as  grass,  wouldst  thou  not  choose  the  latter?  And  rightly; 
for  by  this,  thou  wouldst  most  effectually  draw  men  to  the 
truth.  This  is  not  my  doctrine,  but  the  blessed  Paul's : 
for  when  he  had  said,  "  Covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts,"  and 
then  added,  "  yet  show  I  unto  you  a  more  excellent  way," 
he  did  not  adduce  miracles,  but  love,  as  the  root  of  all 
good  things.'  ^ 

Few  points  present  greater  difiiculties  than  the  attempt 
to  fix  accurately  the  moment  when  these  miraculous 
powers  were  withdrawn  from  the  Church,  and  it  entered 
into  its  permanent  state,  with  only  its  present  miracles  of 
grace  and  the  record  of  its  past  miracles  of  power ;  instead 

^  Compare  a  beautiful  passage  by  St.  Bernard,  Serm.  xlvi.  8,  in  Cant. 
Neander  (Kirch.  Geseh.  vol.  iv.  pp.  255-257)  quotes  many  like  utterances 
coming  from  the  chief  teachers  of  the  Church,  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
darkness  of  the  ninth  century.  Thus  Odo  of  Clugny  relates  of  a  pious 
layman,  to  whom  some  grudged  his  reputation  for  sanctity,  seeing  that 
he  wrought  no  miracles,  how  that  once  detecting  a  thief  in  the  act  of 
robbing  him,  he  not  merely  dismissed  him,  but  gave  him  all  that  which 
he  would  wrongfully  have  taken  away,  and  adds,  Certe  mihi  videtur,  quod 
id  magis  admiratione  dignuni  sit,  quam  si  furem  rigere  in  saxi  duritiem 
fecisset.  Neander  (vol.  v.  pp.  4.77,  606)  collects  other  medieval  teeti- 
monies  to  the  same  effect. 


WITH  OTHER   CYCLES  OF  MIRACLES.         S7 

of  having  actually  going-  forward  in  the  midst  of  it  those 
miracles  of  power  as  well,  with  which  it  first  asserted  it- 
self in  the  world.  This  is  difficult,  because  it  is  difficult 
to  say  at  what  precise  moment  the  Church  was  no  longer 
in  the  act  of  becoming,  but  contemplated  in  the  mind  of 
God  as  now  actually  being ;  when,  to  the  wisdom,  of  God 
it  appeared  that  He  had  adequately  confirmed  the  word 
with  signs  following,  and  that  this  framework  might  be 
withdrawn  from  the  completed  arch,  these  props  and 
strengthenings  of  the  infant  plant  might  safely  be  re- 
moved from  the  hardier  tree.* 

That  their  retrocession  was  gradual,  that  this  mighty 
tide  of  power  should  have  ebbed  only  by  degrees,**  this  was 
what  was  to  be  looked  for  in  that  spiritual  world  which, 
like  God's  natural  world,  is  free  from  all  harsh  and  abrupt 

^  This  image  is  Clirysostom's  (Horn,  xlii.  in  Insmpt.  Act,  Apostt.) : 
'  As  therefore  a  husbandman,  having  lately  committed  a  young  tree  to 
the  hosorri  of  the  earth,  counts  it  worthy,  being  yet  tender,  of  much 
attention,  on  every  side  fencing  it  round,  protecting  it  with  stones  and 
thorns,  so  that  neither  it  may  be  torn  up  by  the  winds,  nor  harmed  by 
the  cattle,  nor  injured  by  any  other  injury ;  but  when  he  sees  that  it  is 
fast  rooted  and  has  sprung  up  on  high,  he  takes  away  the  defences,  since 
now  the  tree  can  defend  itself  from  any  such  wrong ;  thus  has  it  been  in 
the  matter  of  our  faith.  When  it  was  newly  planted,  while  it  was  yet 
tender,  great  attention  was  bestowed  on  it  on  every  side.  But  after  it 
was  fixed  and  rooted  and  sprung  up  on  high,  after  it  had  filled  all  the 
world,  Christ  both  took  away  the  defences,  and  for  the  time  to  come 
removed  the  other  strengthenings.  Wherefore  at  the-beginning  He  gave 
gifts  even  to  the  unworthy,  for  the  early  time  had  need  of  these  helps  to 
faith.  But  now  He  gives  them  not  even  to  the  worthy,  for  the  strength 
of  faith  no  longer  needs  this  assistance.'  Compare  Gregory  the  Great 
{Horn.  xxix.  in  Evang.)  :  Htec  [signa]  necessaria  in  exordio  Ecclesite 
fuerunt.  Ut  enim  fides  cresceret,  miraculis  fuerat  nutrienda:  quia  et 
nos  cum  arbusta  plantamus,  tamdiu  eis  aquam  infundimus,  quousque  ea 
in  terra  jam  convaluisse  videamus ;  et  si  semel  radicem  fixerint,  in  rigando 
cessamus. 

^  ThusOrigen  {Con.  Cds.  ii,  46)  calls  the  surviving  gifts  in  the  Church 
vestiges  (?x»'';)  of  former  powers ;  and  again  (ii.  8)  he  speaks  of  them  as 
iXi'j)  Kai  Tivci  ye  fuiZoia.  Compare  ii.  33  ;  Irenseus,  ii.  32  ;  Justin  Martyr, 
Ajjol.  ii.  6.  There  is  a  curious  passage  in  Abelard  (Hermo  de  Joan.  Bapt. 
p.  967),  directed  against  the  claimants  to  the  power  of  working  miracles 
in  his  day.  Though  he  does  not  mention  St.  Bernard,  one  cannot  doubt 
that  he  has  him  in  his  eve. 


58  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

tra?isitions,  in  wliicli  each  line  melts  imperceptibly  into 
the  next.  We  can  conceive  the  order  of  retrocession  to 
have  been  in  this  way  ;  that  divine  power  which  dealt  in 
all  its  fulness  and  intensity  in  Christ,  was  first  divided 
among  his  Apostles,  who,  therefore,  individually  wrought 
fewer  and  smaller  works  than  their  Lord.  It  was  again 
from  them  further  subdivided  among  the  ever-multiplying 
numbers  of  the  Church,  who,  consequently,  possessed  not 
these  gifts  in  the  same  intensity  and  plenitude  as  did  the 
twelve.  At  the  same  time  it  must  always  be  remembered 
that  these  receding  gifts  were  ever  helping  to  form  that 
which  should  be  their  own  substitute ;  that  if  they  were 
waning,  that  which  was  to  supply  their  room  was  ever 
waxing, — that  they  only  waned  as  that  other  waxed ;  the 
flower  dropped  ofl'  only  as  the  fruit  was  being  formed.  If 
those  wonders  of  a  first  creation  have  left  us,  yet  they  did 
not  this  till  they  could  bequeath  in  their  stead  the  standing 
wonder  of  a  Church,'  itself  a  wonder,  and  embracing 
manifold  wonders  in  its  bosom.^  For  are  not  the  laws  of 
the  spiritual  world,  as  they  are  ever  working  in  the  midst 
of  us,  a  continual  wonder?  What  is  the  new  birth  in 
Baptism,  and  the  communion  of  Christ's  body  and  blood 
in  the  Holy  Eucharist,  and  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul,  and 
a  kingdom  of  heaven  in  the  world,  what  are  these  but 


^  Augustine  (De  Civ.  Dei,  xxii.  8) :  Quisquis  adhuc  prodigia,  uti 
credat,  inquiiit,  niagnum  est  ipse  prodigium,  qui  mundo  credente,  non 
credat. 

*  Coleridge  {Literary  Hemains,  vol.  iv.  p,  260) :  '  The  result  of  my 
own  meditations  is,  that  the  evidence  of  the  Gospel,  taken  as  a  total,  is 
as  great  for  the  Christians  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  for  those  of  the 
apostolic  age.  I  should  not  be  startled  if  I  were  told  it  were  greater. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  this  equally  holds  good  of  each  component 
part.  An  evidence  of  the  most  cogent  clearness,  unknown  to  the  primi- 
tive Christians,  may  compensate  for  the  evanescence  of  some  evidence 
which  they  enjoyed.  Evidences  comparatively  dim  have  waxed  into 
noonday  splendour,  and  the  comparative  wane  of  others  once  effulgent 
is  more  than  indemnified  by  the  synopsis  tov  navTOL:  which  we  enjoy,  and 
by  the  standing  miracle  of  a  Christendom  commensurate  and  almost 
eynonymouB  with  the  civilised  world.' 


WITH    OTHER    CYCLES   OF  MIRACLES.  59 

every  one  of  them  wonders?'  wonders  in  this  like  the 
wonders  of  ordinary  nature,  as  distinguished  from  those 
which  accompany  a  new  in-coming  of  power,  that  they  are 
under  a  law  which  we  can  anticipate  ;  that  they  conform 
to  an  absolute  order,  and  one  the  course  of  which  we  can 
understand; — but   not  therefore   the  less  divine.'^     How 

^  The  wonder  of  the  existence  and  subsistence  of  a  Church  in  the 
world  is  itself  so  great,  that  Augustine  says  strikingly,  that  to  believe, 
or  not  to  believe,  the  miracles  is  only  an  alternative  of  wonders.  If  you 
believe  not  the  miracles,  you  must  at  least  believe  this  miracle,  that  the 
world  was  converted  without  miracles  (si  miraculis  non  creditis,  saltem 
huic  miraculo  credendum  est,  mundum  sine  miraculis  fuisse  conversum  ; 
cf.  De  Civ.  Dei,  xxii.  8,  i).  And  on  the  relation  of  the  helps  to  faith, 
the  witnesses  of  God's  presence  in  thp  midst  of  his  Church,  which 
severally  we  have,  and  which  the  early  Christians  had,  he  says  (Ser}7i. 
ccxliv.  8):  Apostoli  Christum  praesentem  videbant:  sed  toto  orbe  terra- 
rum  diffusam  Ecclesiam  non  videbant:  videbant  caput,  et  de  corpore 
credebant.  Habemus  vices  nostras :  habemus  gratiam  dispensationis  et 
distributionis  nostrse  :  ad  credendum  certissimis  documentis  tempora 
nobis  in  una  fide  sunt  distributa.  lUi  videbant  caput,  et  credebant  de 
corpore  :  nos  videmus  corpus,  et  credamus  de  capite.  Augustine's  own 
judgment  respecting  the  continuance  of  miracles  in  the  Church  varied 
at  different  times  of  his  life.  In  an  early  work,  De  Vera  Reliyime,  xxv. 
47,  he  denies  their  continuance  :  Cum  enim  Ecclesia  Catholica  per  totum 
orbem  diffusa  atque  fundata  sit,  nee  miracula  ilia  in  nostrum  tempus 
durare  permissa  sunt,  ne  animus  semper  visibilia  quaereret ;  while  in  his 
Retractations  (i.  13,  25)  he  withdraws  this  statement,  or  limits  it  to  such 
miracles  as  those  which  accompanied  baptism  at  the  first ;  and  De  Civ. 
Dei,  xxii.  8, he  enumerates  at  great  length  miracles,  chiefly  or  exclusively 
miracles  of  healing,  which  he  believed  to  have  been  wrought  in  his  own 
time,  and  coming  more  or  less  within  his  own  knowledge.  On  this 
whole  subject  see  Mozley,  Eiyht  Lectures  on  Miracles,  pp.  210,  373,  383. 

*  Gregory  the  Great  (IIo7n.  xxix.  in  Evang.)  :  Sancta  quippe  Ecclesia 
quotidie  spiritaliter  facit  quod  tunc  per  Apostolos  corporaliter  faciebat. 
Nam  sacerdotes  ejus  cum  per  exorcismi  gratiam  manum  credentibus  im- 
ponunt,  et  habitare  malignos  spiritus  in  eorum  niente  contradicunt,  quid 
aliud  faciunt,  nisi  daemonia  ejiciuut  ?  Et  fideles  quique  qui  jam  vitae 
veteris  socularia  verba  derelinquunt,  sancta  autem  mysteria  insonant, 
Conditoris  sui  laudes  et  potentiam,  quantum  praevalent,  narrant,  quid 
aliud  faciunt,  nisi  novis  Unguis  loquuntur  ?  Qui  dum  bonis  suis  exhor- 
tationibus  malitiara  de  alienis  cordibus  auferunt,  serpentes  toUunt.  Et 
dum  pestiferas  suasiones  audiunt,  sed  tamen  ad  operationem  pravam 
minime  pertrahuntur,  mortiferum  quidem  est  quod  bibunt,  sed  non  eis 
nocebit.  Qui  quoties  proximos  suos  in  opere  bono  infirmari  conspiciunt, 
dum  eis  tota  virtute  concurrunt,  et  exemplo  suae  operationis  illorum 
vitam  roborant  qui  in  propria  actione  titubant,  quid  aliud  faciunt,  nisi 
super  aegros  manus  imponunt,  ut  bene  habeant  ?  Quae  uimirum  miracula 
5 


6o  THE  EVANGELICAL,    COMPARED 

meanly  do  we  esteem  of  a  Chm-cli,  of  its  marvellous  gifts, 
of  the  powers  of  the  coming  world  which  are  working 
within  it,  of  its  Word,  of  its  Sacraments,  when  it  seems 
to  us  a  small  thing  that  in  it  men  are  new  born,  raised 
from  the  death  of  sin  to  the  life  of  righteousness,  the  eyes 
of  their  understanding  enlightened,  and  their  ears  opened, 
unless  we  can  tell  of  more  visible  aijd  sensuous  wonders  as 
well.  It  is  as  though  the  heavens  should  not  declare  to 
us  the  glory  of  God,  nor  the  firmament  show  us  his  handi- 
work, except  at  some  single  moment  such  as  that  when 
the  sun  was  standing  still  upon  Gibeon,  and  the  moon  in 
Ajalon. 

While  then  it  does  not  greatly  concern  us  to  know  ivhen 
this  power  was  withdrawn,  what  does  vitally  concern  us  is, 
that  we  suffer  not  these  carnal  desires  after  miracles,  as 
though  they  were  necessarily  saints  who  had  them,  and 
they  but  imperfect  Christians  who  were  without  them,  as 
though  the  Church  were  inadequately  furnished  and 
spiritually  impoverished  which  could  not  show  them,  to 
rise  up  in  our  hearts ;  being,  as  they  are,  ever  ready  to 
rise  up  in  the  natural  heart  of  man,  to  which  jjower  is  so 
much  dearer  than  holiness.     There  is  no  surer  proof  than 


tanto  majora,  sunt,  quanto  spiritalia,  tanto  majora  sunt,  quanto  per  haec 
non  corpora  sed  animte  suscitantur.  .  .  .  Corporalia  ilia  miracila  osten- 
dunt  aliquando  sanctitatem,  non  autem  faciunt :  lisec  vero  spiritalia,  qute 
aguntur  in  mente,  virtutem  vitse  non  ostendunt,  sed  faciunt.  Ilia  habere 
et  mali  possunt ;  istis  autem  perfrui  nisi  l/Oni  non  possunt.  .  .  .  Nolite 
ergo,  fratres  carissimi,  amare  signa  quae  possunt  cum  reprobis  haberi 
communia,  sed  haec  quae  modo  diximus,  caritatis  atque  pietatis  miracula 
amate  ;  quse  tanto  securiora  sunt,  quanto  et  occulta ;  et  de  quibus  apud 
Dominum  eo  major  fit  retributio,  quo  apud  homines  minor  est  gloria. 
Compare  Augustine,  Senn.  Ixxxviii.  3  ;  and  Origen  {Con.  Cels.  ii.  48) 
finds  in  these  wonders  of  grace  which  are  ever  going  forward,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  promise  that  those  who  believed  should  do  greater  things 
than  Christ  Himself  (John  xiv.  12).  Bernard  too,  In  Ascen.  Dom. 
Senn.  i.,  has  some  beautiful  remarks  on  the  better  miracles,  which  are 
now  evermore  finding  place  in  Christ's  Church.  For  the  literature  upon 
this,  and  indeed  upon  every  other  part  of  the  subject,  see  the  admirable 
article  on  Miracles  by  the  Bishop  of  Killaloe  in  the  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible,  vol.  ii,  p.  283. 


WITH  OTHER   CYCLES  OF  MIRACLES.         6i 

the  utterance  of  sentiments  such  as  these,  that  the  true 
glory  of  the  Church  is  hidden  from  our  eyes — that  some 
of  its  outward  trappings  and  ornaments  have  caught  our 
fancy ;  and  not  the  fact  that  it  is  all-glorious  within,  an 
answer  to  the  deepest  needs  of  the  spirit  of  man,  which 
has  taken  possession  of  our  hearts  and  minds.  It  is  little 
which  we  ourselves  have  known  of  the  miracles  of  grace, 
when  they  seem  to  us  poor  and  pale,  and  only  the  miracles 
of  power  have  any  attraction  in  our  eyes. 


CHAPTEE  V. 
THE  ASSAULTS  ON  TH:^  MIHACLES. 

I.  The  Jewish. 

AEIGID  monotheistic  religion  like  tlie  Jewish  left  but 
one  way  of  escape  from  the  authority  of  miracles, 
which  once  were  acknowledged  to  be  such,  and  not  mere 
collusions  and  sleights  of  hand.  There  remained  nothing 
to  say,  but  that  which  the  adversaries  of  the  Lord  con- 
tinually did  say,  namely,  that  the  works  wrought  by  Him 
were  wrought  from  beneath :  *  This  fellow  doth  not  cast 
out  devils  but  by  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  the  devils '  * 
(Matt.  xii.  24;  cf.  Mark  iii.  22-27 ;  Luke  xi.  15-22).  We 
have  our  Lord's  own  answer  to  the  deep  malignity  of  this 
assertion ;  his  appeal,  namely,  to  the  whole  tenor  of  his 
doctrine,  and  of  the  miracles  wherewith  He  confirmed  that 
doctrine — whether  they  were  not  altogether  for  the  over- 
throwing of  the  kingdom  of  evil, — whether  a  lending  by 
Satan  of  such  power  to  Him  would  not  be  wholly  incon- 
ceivable, since  it  were  merely  and  altogether  suicidal. 
For  though  it  might  be  quite  intelligible  that  Satan 
should  bait  his  hook  with  some  good,  array  himself  as  an 
angel  of  light,  and  do  for  a  while  deeds  that  might  appear 
as  deeds  of  light,  so  better  to  carry  through  some  mighty 
delusion — 

'  Win  men  with  lionest  trifles,  to  betray  tliem 
In  deepest  consequence,' 

« 
^  They  regarded  Him  as  planum  in  signis  (TertuUian,   Adv.  Matv. 
iii.  6 ;  cf.  Apolog.  xxi.).     This  charge  is  drest  out  with  infinite  blas- 
phemous additions  in  the  later  Jewish  books  (see  Eisenmenger,  Entdeckt, 
Judmth.  vol.  i.  p.  148,  eeq.). 


THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES.  63 

just  as  Darius  was  willing  tliat  a  small  detachment  of  his 
army  should  perish,  that  so  the  mighty  deceit  which  Zopyrus 
was  practising  against  Babylon  might  succeed,' — yet  the 
furthering  upon  his  part  of  such  an  assault  on  his  own  king- 
dom as,  if  successful,  must  overturn  it  altogether,  is  quite 
inconceivable.  That  kingdom,  thus  in  arms  against  itself, 
could  not  stand,  but  must  have  an  end.  He  who  came,  as 
all  his  words  and  his  deeds  testified,  to  '  destroy  the  works 
of  the  devil,'  could  not  have  come  armed  with  his  power, 
and  helped  onward  by  his  aid.  It  is  not  of  a  pact  with 
the  Evil  One  which  this  tells,  but  of  Another  mightier  than 
that  Evil  One,  who  has  entered  with  power  into  his  strong- 
hold, and  who,  having  bound  him,  is  now  spoiling  his  goods. 
Our  Lord  does  in  fact  repel  the  accusation,  and  derive 
authority  to  his  miracles,  not  from  the  power  which  they 
display,  however  that  may  be  the  first  thing  that  brings 
them  into  consideration,  but  from  the  ethical  ends  which 
they  serve.  He  appeals  to  every  man's  conscience,  whether 
the  doctrine  to  which  they  bear  witness,  and  which  bears 
witness  to  them,  be  from  above,  or  from  beneath :  and  if 
from  above,  then  the  power  with  which  He  accomplished 
them  could  not  have  been  lent  Him  from  beneath,  since 
the  kingdom  of  lies  would  never  so  contradict  itself,  as 
seriously  to  help  forward  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom 
of  truth.2 

There  is,  indeed,  at  first  sight  a  difficulty  in  the  argu- 
ment which  our  Saviour  draws  from  the  oneness  of  the 
kingdom  of  Satan — namely,  that  the  very  idea  of  this 
kingdom,  as  we  present  it  to  ourselves,  is  that  of  an 
anarchy,  of  blind  rage  and  hate  not  merely  against  God, 
but  every  part  of  it  warring  against  every  other.  And  this 
is  most  deeply  true,  that  hell  is  as  much  in  arms  against 
itself  as  against  heaven ;  neither  does  our  Lord  deny  that 
in  respect  of  itself  that  kingdom  is  infinite  j  contradiction 

1  Herodotus,  iii.  155. 

"  Eusebius  (Dem.  Evaiig.  iii.  6)  makes  much  of  this  argument. 


64  THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

and  division:  only  He  asserts  that  in  relation  to  the  Mng- 
dom  of  heaven  it  is  at  one :  tliere  is  one  life  in  it  and  one 
soul  in  opposition  to  that.  Just  as  a  nation  or  tingdom 
may  embrace  within  itself  infinite  parties,  divisions,  dis- 
cords, jealousies,  and  heart-burnings ;  yet,  if  it  is  to 
subsist  as  a  nation  at  all,  it  must  not,  as  regards  other 
nations,  have  lost  its  sense  of  unity ;  when  it  does  so,  of 
necessity  it  falls  to  pieces  and  perishes.  To  the  Pharisees 
He  says  :  '  This  kingdom  of  evil  subsists ;  by  your  own 
confession  it  does  so  ;  it  cannot  therefore  have  denied  the 
one  condition  of  its  existence,  which  is,  that  it  should 
not  lend  its  powers  to  the  overthrowing  of  itself,  that  it 
should  not  side  with  its  own  foes ;  my  words  and  works 
declare  that  I  am  its  foe,  it  cannot  therefore  be  siding 
with  Me.' 

This  accusation  brought  against  the  miracles  of  Christ, 
that  they  were  done  by  the  power  of  an  evil  magic,  the 
heathen  also  sometimes  used ;  but  evidently  having  bor- 
rowed this  weapon  from  the  armoury  of  the  Jewish  adver- 
saries of  the  faith.'  And  in  their  mouths,  who  had  no 
such  earnest  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  upon  one  side 
and  the  kingdom  of  evil  on  the  other,  and  of  the  fixed 
limits  which  divide  the  two,  who  had  peopled  the  inter- 
mediate space  veith  middle  powers,  some  good,  some  evil, 
some  mingled  of  both,  the  accusation  was  not  at  all  so 
deeply  malignant  as  in  the  mouth  of  a  Jew.     It  was  little 

'  See  a  curious  passage,  Origen,  Con.  Cels.  i.  68  ;  cf.  i.  6;  ii.  49  ;  viii. 
9  ;  and  compare  Augustine,  De  Cons.  Evang.  i.  9- 1 1 ;  Jerome,  Brev.  in 
Psal.  Ixxxi.  in  fine  ;  Arnobius,  Adv.  Gen.  i.  43,  -who  mentions  this  as  one 
of  the  calumnies  of  the  heathen  against  the  Lord :  Magus  fuit,  clandes- 
tinis  artibus  omnia  ilia  perfecit:  yEgyptiorum  ex  adytis  angelorum 
potentium  nomina  et  remotas  furatus  est  disci plinas;  cf.  53.  This 
charge  of  fetching  his  magical  skill  from  Egypt,  which  Celsus  repeats 
(Origen,  Con.  Cels.  i.  28,  38 ;  cf.  Eusebius,  Don.  Evang.  iii.  6),  betrays 
at  once  the  Jewish  origin  of  the  accusation.  It  is  evermore  recurring 
in  Jewish  books.  Egypt,  say  they,  was  the  natural  home  of  magic,  so 
that  if  the  magic  of  the  world  were  divided  into  ten  parts,  Egypt  would 
possess  nine ;  and  there,  even  as  the  Christian  histories  confess,  Jesus 
resided  two  years  (Eisenmenger,  EntdecM,  Judenth.  vol.  i.  pp.  149,  166). 


THE  ASSAULTS   0^  THE  MIRACLES.  65 

more  than  a  stone  which,  they  found  conveniently  at  hand 
to  flinf^,  and  with  them  is  continually  passing  over  into 
the  charge  that  those  works  were  wrought  by  trick — that 
they  were  conjuror's  arts ;  the  line  between  the  two  charges 
is  continually  disappearing.  The  heathen,  however,  had  a 
method  more  truly  their  own  of  evading  the  force  of  the 
Christian  miracles,  which  is  now  to  consider. 

2.  The  Heathen.     (Celsus,  Hierocles,  Porphyet.) 

A  religion  like  the  Jewish,  which,  besides  God  and  the 
Angels  in  direct  and  immediate  subordination  to  Him,  left 
no  spirits  conceivable  but  those  in  rebellion  against  Him, 
the  absolutely  and  entirely  evil,  this,  as  has  been  observed 
already,  left  no  choice,  when  once  the  miracle  was  ad- 
judged not  to  be  from  God,  but  to  ascribe  it  to  Satan. 
There  was  nothing  between ;  it  was  from  heaven,  or,  if 
not  from  heaven,  from  hell.  But  it  was  otherwise  in  the 
heathen  world,  and  with  the  '  gods  many  '  of  polytheism. 
So  long  as  these  lived  in  the  minds  of  men,  the  argument 
from  the  miracles  was  easily  evaded.  For  what  at  the 
utmost  did  they  prove  in  respect  of  their  author  ?  What 
but  this,  that  a  god,  it  might  be  one  of  the  higher,  or 
it  might  be  one  of  the  middle  powers,  the  halixovss,  the 
intermediate  deities,  was  with  him  ?  What  was  there,  men 
replied,  in  this  circumstance,  which  justified  the  demand 
of  an  absolute  obedience  upon  their  parts?  Wherefore 
should  they  yield  exclusive  allegiance  to  Him  that  wrought 
these  works  ?  The  gods  had  spoken  often  by  others  also, 
had  equipped  them  with  powers  equal  to  or  greater  than 
those  claimed  by  his  disciples  for  Jesus ;  yet  no  man  there- 
fore demanded  for  them  that  they  should  be  recognized  as 
absolute  lords  of  the  destinies  of  men.  Esculapius  per- 
formed wonderful  cures ;  Apollonius  went  about  the  world 
healing   the  sick,  expelling   demons,  raising  the  dead ; ' 

'  Lactantius,  Inst.  Div.  v.  3. 


66  THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

Aristeas  disappeared  from  the  earth  in  as  marvellous  a 
way  as  the  founder  of  the  Christian  faith  : '  yet  no  man 
built  upon  these  wonders  a  superstructure  so  immense 
as  that  which  the  Christians  built  upon  the  wonders  of 
Christ.2 

Thus  Celsus,  as  we  learn  from  more  than  one  passage 
in  Origen's  reply,  adduces  now  the  mythic  personages  of 
antiquity,  now  the  magicians  of  a  later  date ;  though 
apparently  with  no  very  distinct  purpose  in  his  mind,  but 
only  with  the  feeling  that  somehow  or  other  he  can  play 
them  off  against  the  divine  Author  of  our  religion,  and 
defeat  his  claims  to  the  allegiance  of  men.  For  it  cer- 
tainly remains  a  question  how  much  credence  he  gave 
himself  to  the  miracles  which  he  adduced  —  Origen^ 
charges  him  with  not  believing  them — whether,  sharing 
the  almost  universal  scepticism  of  the  educated  classes  of 
his  day,  it  was  not  rather  his  meaning  that  all  should  fall, 
than  that  all  should  stand,  together.  Hierocles,  governor 
of  Bithynia,  a  chief  instigator  of  the  cruelties  under  Dio- 
cletian,— and  who,  if  history  does  not  belie  him,  wielded 
arms  of  unrighteousness  on  both  hands  against  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  the  persecutor's  sword  and  the  libeller's  pen, — 

'  Origen,  Con,  Cels.  iii.  27. 

^  The  existence  of  false  cycles  of  miracles  should  no  more  cast  a  sus- 
picion upon  all,  or  cause  to  doubt  those  which  present  themselves  with 
marks  of  the  true,  than  the  appearance  of  a  parhe3:on  forerunning  the  sun 
should  cause  us  to  deny  that  he  was  travelling  up  from  beneath  the 
horizon,  for  which  rather  it  is  an  evidence.  The  false  money  passes,  not 
because  there  is  none  better,  and  thert-lbre  all  have  consented  to  receive 
it,  but  because  there  is  a  good  money,  under  cblour  of  which  the  false  is 
accepted.  Thus  is  it  with  the  longing  which  has  existed  '  at  all  times 
and  in  all  ages  after  some  power  which  is  not  circumscribed  by  the  rules 
of  ordinary  visible  experience,  but  which  is  superior  to  these  rules  and 
can  transgress  them.'  The  mythic  stories  in  which  such  longings  find 
an  apparently  historic  clothing  and  utterance,  so  far  from  being  eyed 
with  suspicion,  should  be  most  welcome  to  the  Christian  inquirer.  The 
enemies  of  the  faith  will  of  course  parade  these  shadows,  in  the  hopes  of 
mfJiing  us  believe  that  our  substance  is  a  shadow  too ;  but  they  aro 
worse  than  simple  who  are  cozened  by  so  palpable  a  fraud. 

'  Con,  Cels.  iii.  22. 


THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES.  67 

followed  in  the  same  line.  His  book  we  know  from  the 
extracts  in  the  answer  of  Eusebius,  and  the  course  of  his 
principal  arguments.  Having  recounted  various  miracles 
wrought,  as  he  affirms,  by  Apollonius,  he  proceeds  thus  : 
*  Yet  do  we  not  account  him  who  has  done  such  things  for 
a  god,  only  for  a  man  beloved  of  the  gods  :  while  the 
Christians,  on  the  contrary,  on  the  ground  of  a  few  insig- 
nificant wonder-works,  proclaim  their  Jesus  for  a  God.' ' 
He  presently,  it  is  true,  shifts  his  arguments,  and  no 
longer  admits  the  miracles,  only  denying  the  conclusions 
drawn  from  them ;  but  rather  denies  that  they  have  any 
credible  attestation :  in  his  blind  hate  setting  them  in 
this  respect  beneath  the  miracles  of  Apollonius,  which 
this  *  lover  of  truth,'  for  he  writes  under  the  name  of 
Philalethes,  declares  to  be  far  more  worthily  attested. 

This  Apollonius  (of  Tyana  in  Cappadocia),  whose  his- 
torical existence  there  seems  no  reason  to  call  in  question, 
was  probably  born  about  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ, 
and  lived  as  far  as  into  the  reign  of  Nerva,  a.d.  97.  Save 
two  or  three  isolated  notices  of  an  earlier  date,  the  only 
record  which  we  have  of  him  is  a  Life,  written  by  Philo- 
stratus,  a  rhetorician  of  the  second  century,  and  pro- 
fessing to  be  founded  on  contemporary  documents,  yet 
everywhere  betraying  its  unhistoric  character.  It  is  in 
fact  a  philosophic  romance,  in  which  the  revival  and  re- 
action of  paganism  in  the  second  century  is  portrayed. 
Yet  I  cannot  think  that  Life  to  have  been  composed  with 
any  purpose  directly  hostile  to  the  new  faith,  but  only  to 
prove  that  they  of  the  old  religion  had  their  mighty 
wonder-worker  as  well.  It  was  composed  indeed,  as  seems 
to  me  perfectly  clear,  with  an  eye  to  the  life  of  our  Lord ; 
the  parallels  are  too  remarkable  to  have  been  the  effect  of 

*  In  the  same  way  Arnobius  (Adv.  Gen.  i.  48)  brings  in  the  heathen 
adversary  saying  it  is  idle  to  make  these  claims  (frustra  tantum  arrogas 
Christo)  on  the  score  of  the  miracles,  when  so  many  others  have  dou« 
the  like. 


6B  THE  ASSAULTS   ON   THE  MIRACLES. 

chance ; '  in  a  certain  sense  also  in  emulation  and  rivalry ; 
yet  not  in  hostile  opposition,  not  as  implying  this  was 
the  Saviour  of  men,  and  not  that;  nor,  yet  as  some  of 
Lucian's  works,  in  a  mocking  irony  of  the  things  which  are 
written  concerning  the  Lord.^  This  later  use  which  has 
often  been  made  of  the  book,  must  not  be  confounded  with 
its  original  purpose,  which  was  different.  The  first,  I 
believe,  who  so  used  it,  was  Charles  Blount,'  one  of  the  ear- 
lier English  Deists.  And  passing  over  some  other  insig- 
nificant endeavours  to  make  the  book  tell  against  revealed 
religion,  endeavours  in  which  the  feeble  hand,  however 
inspired  by  hate,  yet  wanted  strength  and  skill  to  launch 
the  dart,  we  come  to  Wieland's  Agathodeemon,  in  which 
neither  malice  nor  dexterity  was  wanting,  and  which,  pro- 
fessing to  explain  upon  natural  grounds  the  miracles  of 
Apollonius,  yet  unquestionably  points  throughout  at  one 
greater  than  the  wonder-worker  of  Tyana,  with  a  hardly 
suppressed  cle  te  fahula  narratur  running  through  the 
whole.* 

^  See,  for  instance,  upon  the  raising  of  the  widow's  son,  the  parallel 
miracle  which  I  have  adduced  from  the  life  of  Apollonius.  The  above 
is  Baur's  conclusion  in  his  instructive  little  treatise  Apollonius  von  Tyana 
und  Christus,  Tiibingen,  183^. 

^  His  Phitopseudes,  for  instance,  and  his  Vera  Ilistcria.  Thus  I  can 
assent  only  to  the  latter  half  of  Huet's  judgment  (Dcjn.  Evang.  prop.  ix. 
14.7):  Id  spectasse  imprimis  videtur  Philostratus,  ut  invalescentem 
jam  Cliristi  tidem  ac  doctrinam  depriraeret,  opposite  hoc  omnis  doctrinaj, 
sanctitatis,  ac  mirificae  virtutis  fceneo  simulacro.  Itaque  ad  Christi 
exemplar  hanc  expressit  effigiem,  et  pleraque  ex  Christi  Jesu  historia 
Apollonio  accommodavit,  ne  quid  ethnici  Chiistianis  invidere  possent. 

'  In  his  now  scarce  translation,  with  notes,  of  The  hvo  Jirst  books  of 
Philostratus,  London,  1680,  with  this  significant  motto  from  Seneca,  Cum 
omnia  in  incerto  sint,  fave  tibi,  et  crede  quod  mavis.  Compare  Apollonius 
of  Tyana,  the  Pagan  Christ  of  the  Third  Century,  by  Albert  R^ville, 
English  Translation,  London,  1866. 

*  The  work  of  Philostratus  has  been  used  with  exactly  an  opposite 
aim  by  Cliristian  apolojiists,  namely,  to  bring  out,  by  comparison  with 
the  best  which  heathenism  could  offer,  the  surpassing  glory  of  Christ. 
Cudworth,  in  his  Intellectual  System,  iv.  15,  occupies  himself  at  a  con- 
eiderable  length  with  Apollonius.  Here  may  probably  have  been  the 
motive  to  Blount's  book,  which  followed  only  two  years  after  the  publi- 
cation of  Cudworth's  great  work.     Henry  More,  too  {Mystery  of  God- 


THE  ASSAULTS   ON   THE  MIRACLES.         69 

The  arguments  drawn  from  these  parallels,  so  far  as  they 
were  adduced  m  good  faith  and  in  earnest,  have,  of  course, 
perished  with  the  perishing  of  polytheism  from  the  minds 
of  men.  Other  miracles  can  no  longer  be  played  off  again  st 
Christ's  miracles ;  the  choice  which  remains  now  is  between 
these  and  none. 


3.  The  Pantheistic.     (Spinoza.) 

These  two  classes  of  assailants  of  the  Scripture  miracles, 
the  Jewish  and  the  heathen,  allowed  the  miracles  them- 
selves to  stand  unquestioned  as  facts,  but  either  challenged 
their  source,  or  denied  the  consequences  drawn  from  them 
by  the  Church.  Not  so  the  pantheistic  deniers  of  the 
miracles,  who  assailed  them  not  as  being  of  the  devil,  not 
as  insufficient  proofs  of  Christ's  claims  of  absolute  lordship; 
but  cut  at  their  very  root,  denying  that  any  miracle  was 
possible,  since  it  was  contrary  to  the  idea  of  God.  For 
these  opponents  of  the  truth  Spinoza  may  be  said,  in 
modern  times,  to  bear  the  word ;  the  objection  is  so  con- 
nected with  his  name,  that  it  will  be  well  to  hear  it  as  he 
has  uttered  it.  That  objection  is  indeed  only  the  necessary 
consequence  of  his  philosophical  system.  Now  the  first 
temptation  on  making  acquaintance  with  that  system  is 
to  contemplate  it  as  a  mere  and  sheer  atheism ;  and  such 
has  ever  been  the  ordinary  charge  against  it ;  nor,  in  study- 
ing his  works,  is  it  always  easy  to  persuade  oneself  that 
it  is  anything  else,  or  that  the  various  passages  in  which 
Spinoza  himself  assumes  it  as  something  different,  ai-e 
more  than  inconsequent  statements,  with  which  he  seeks 
to  blind  the  eyes  of  others,  and  to  avert  the  odium  of  this 
charge  of  atheism  from  himself.  And  yet  atheism  it  is 
not,  nor  is  it  even  a  material,  however  it  may  be  Si  formal, 

liness,  iv.  9-1 2)^  compares  at  large  the  miracles  of  Clirlst  v?ith  thooe  0/ 
Apollonius, 


70  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

pantheism.  He  does  not, — and  all  justice  requires  that 
this  should  be  acknowledged, — bring  down  and  resolve  God 
into  nature,  but  rather  takes  up  and  loses  nature  in  God. 
It  is  only  man  whom  he  submits  to  a  blind  fate,  and  for 
whom  he  changes,  as  indeed  for  man  he  does,  all  ethics 
into  physics.  But  the  idea  of  freedom,  as  regards  God,  is 
saved ;  since,  however,  he  affirms  Him  immanent  in  nature 
and  not  transcending  it,  this  is  only  because  He  has  Him- 
self chosen  these  laws  of  nature  as  the  one  unchangeable 
manner  of  his  working,  and  constituted  them  in  his  wis- 
dom so  elastic,  that  they  shall  prove,  under  every  circum- 
stance and  in  every  need,  the  adequate  organs  and  servants 
of  his  ■will.  He  is  not  bound  to  nature  otherwise  than  by 
that,  his  own  will;  the  laws  which  limit  Him  are  of  his 
own  imposing ;  the  necessity  which  binds  Him  to  them  is 
not  the  necessity  of  any  absolute  fate,  but  of  the  highest 
fitness.  Still,  however,  Spinoza  does  affirm  such  a  neces- 
sity. The  nahira  naturans  must  unfold  itself  in  the  natura 
naturata,  and  thus  excludes  the  possibility  of  any  revela- 
tion, whereof  the  v^ery  essence  is  that  it  is  a  new  beginning, 
a  new  unfolding  by  God  of  Himself  to  man,  and  especially 
excludes  the  miracle,  which  is  itself  at  once  the  accompani- 
ment, and  itself  a  constituent  part,  of  a  revelation. 

Let  me  here  observe,  that  to  deny  that  miracles  can 
find  a  fittmg  place  in  God's  moral  and  spiritual  govern- 
ment of  the  world  is  one  thing ;  to  deny  that  they  can 
find  a  possible  place,  that  there  is  any  room  for  them 
there,  is  another.  It  may  be  indeed  a  question  whether  the 
latter  has  not  sometimes  been  intended  when  the  former 
only  was  pretended.  Still  the  denial  of  their  fitness,  where 
honestly  meant,  and  where  nothing  else  is  lurking  behind, 
involves  no  necessary  assault  on  the  essential  attributes  of 
God.  With  the  denial  of  the  possibility  of  miracles  it  is 
otherwise.  In  this  denial  there  is  in  fact  a  withdrawal 
from  Him  cf  all  which  constitutes  Him  more  than  the 
animating  principle  of  the  world.     He  is  no  longer  a  God 


THE   ASSAULTS   ON-  THE  MIRACLES.  71 

of  freedom,  a  living  God,  above  nature  and  independent  of 
nature ;  but  nature  is  the  necessary  form  of  his  existence, 
and  condition  of  his  manifestation.  Shut  up  and  confined 
within  limits  which  He  is  impotent  to  overpass,  in  this 
strait- waistcoat  of  nature.  He  is  less  favoured  than  some 
of  the  meanest  of  his  creatures.  If  the  snail  is  tied  to  its 
house,  it  can  at  worst  move  up  and  down  with  this  house 
whither  it  will ;  if  the  silkworm  is  closely  enveloped  in  the 
cerements  of  its  cocoon,  it  at  all  events  has  the  prospect 
of  bursting-  as  a  butterfly  from  these.  But  there  is  no 
such  liberty,  no  such  hope  of  liberty,  for  a  God  who  is 
enclosed  within  the  limits  of  nature,  and  of  nature  as  we 
know  it  now,  and  who  ca.n  onlj-  manifest  Himself  through 
this. 

It  would  profit  little  to  enter  in  detail  on  the  especial 
charges  which  Spinoza  brings  against  the  miracle,  as  low- 
ering, and  unworthy  of,  the  idea  of  God.  They  are  but  the 
application  to  a  particular  point  of  the  same  charges  which 
he  brings  against  all  revelation,  namely,  that  to  coticeive 
any  such  is  to  dishonour,  and  cast  a  slight  upon,  God's 
great  original  revelation  of  Himself  in  nature  and  in  man; 
a  charging  of  that  with  such  imperfection  and  incomplete- 
ness, as  that  it  needed  the  author  of  the  world's  laws 
to  interfere  in  aid  of  those  laws,  lest  they  should  prove 
utterly  inadequate  to  his  purposes.^     With  the  miracle  in 

^  In  that  half-recantation  which  Henry  Heine  made  at  the  last  of  all 
the  proud  things  that  he  had  spoken  against  God,  and  which,  imperfect 
though  it  he,  none  can  read  without  the  deepest  interest,  these  remark- 
able words  occur ;  he  is  tracing  the  steps  of  his  return  to  God, — may  it 
indeed  have  been  a  return  to  Him ! — and  says :  *  On  my  way  I  found  the 
god  of  the  Pantheists,  but  I  could  make  nothing  of  him.  This  poor 
visionary  creature  is  interwoven  with  and  grown  into  the  world.  Indeed 
he  is  almost  imprisoned  in  it,  and  yawns  at  you,  without  voice,  without 
power.  To  have  will,  one  must  have  personality,  and  to  manifest  oneself, 
one  must  have  elbow-room.' 

2  Tract.  Theol.  Pol.  vi. :  Nam  cum  virtus  et  potentia  naturae  sit  ipsa 
Dei  virtus  et  potentia,  leges  autem  et  regulse  naturje  ipsa  Dei  decreta, 
onmino  crodeudum  est,  potentiam  naturse  infinitam  esse,  ej usque  leges 
adeo  latas,  ut  ad  omnia  quae  et  ab  ipso  divino  intellectu  concipiuntur,  so 
extendant;  alias  enim  quid  aliud  statuitur,  quam  quod  Deus  naturam 


72  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

particular  lie  finds  fault,  as  a  bringing  in  of  disorder  into 
that  creation,  of  whicli  tL.e  only  idea  wortliy  of  God  is 
that  of  an  unchangeable  order.  It  is  a  making  of  God  to 
contradict  Himself,  for  the  law  which  was  violated  by  the 
miracle  is  as  much  God's  law  as  the  miracle  which  vio- 
lated it.^  The  answer  to  this  objection  has  been  already 
anticipated ;  the  miracle  is  not  a  discord  in  nature,  but  the 
coming  in  of  a  higher  harmony ;  not  disorder,  but  instead 
of  the  order  of  earth,  the  order  of  heaven ;  not  the  viola- 
tion of  law,  but  that  which  continually,  even  in  this  na- 
tural world,  is  taking  place,  the  comprehension  of  a  lower 
law  in  a  higher  ;  in  this  case  the  comprehension  of  a  lower 
natural,  in  a  higher  spiritual  law ;  with  only  such  orderly 
violence  done  to  the  lower  as  is  necessarily  consequent 
upon  this.^ 

When,  further,  he  imputes  to  the  mu-acle  that  it  rests 
on  a  false  assumption  of  the  position  which  man  occupies 
in  the  universe,  flatters  the  notion  that  nature  is  to  serve 
him,  not  he  to  bow  to  nature,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it 
does  rest  on  this  assumption.  But  this  were  only  a  charge 
which  would  tell  against  it,  supposing  that  true,  which  so 
far  from  being  truth,  is  indeed  his  first  great  falsehood  of 
all,  namely,  that  God  is  first  a  God  of  nature,  and  only  a 

adeo  impotentem  creaverit,  ej  usque  leges  et  regulas  adeo  steriles 
statuerit,  ut  saepe  de  novo  ei  subvenire  cogatur,  si  earn  conservatam  vult, 
et  ut  res  ex  veto  succedant  ?  quod  sane  a  ratioue  alienissimuni  esse 
existimo. 

^  On  this  matter  Godet  (Cotum.  sur  VlEvayig.  de  St.-Jean,  p.  361)  has 
very  excellently  said  :  '  Si  I'ceuvre  de  la  nature  ^tait  la  pensee  definitive 
du  Cr^ateur,  il  est  certain  que  le  miracle  serait  souverainement  impro- 
bable. Car  un  fait  de  ce  genre  ressemblerait  a  une  retouche,  et  ce  pro- 
c^d^  serait  indigne  d'un  tel  artiste.  Mais  ei  la  nature  actuelle  est  une 
ebauebe,  d'ou  doit  se  d^gager,  avec  le  concours  de  la  creature  libre,  ime 
ceuvre  sup^rieure,  dans  laquelle  la  matiere  sera  purement  I'organe  et  la 
eplendeur  de  I'esprit,  le  miracle  est,  aux  yeux  du  penseur,  I'apparition 
anticip(5e  et  le  prelude  ravissant  de  ce  nouvel  ordre  de  choses.  Ce  n'est 
point  un  solde  ;  c'est  une  arrhe. 

*  Emerson  adopts  Spinoza's  aspect  of  a  miracle  when  he  says,  '  The 
■word  miracle,  as  pronounced  by  Christian  churches,  gives  a  false  impres- 
sion. It  is  a  monster ;  it  is  not  one  with  the  blowing  clouds  and  the 
falling  rain.' 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  TEE  MIRACLES.  73 

God  of  men  as  they  find  their  place  in  the  order  of  nature. 
K  God  be  indeed  only  or  chiefly  the  God  of  nature,  and 
not  in  a  paramount  sense  the  God  of  grace,  the  God  of 
men,  if  nature  be  indeed  the  highest,  and  man  only  created 
as  furniture  for  this  planet,  it  would  be  indeed  absurd  and 
inconceivable  that  the  higher  should  serve,  or  give  place 
to,  the  lower.  But  if,  rather,  man  is  'the  crown  of  things,' 
the  end  and  object  of  all,  if  he  be  indeed  the  vicegerent 
of  the  Highest,  the  image  of  God,  the  first-fruits  of  his 
creatures,  this  world  and  all  that  belongs  to  it  being  but  a 
school  for  the  training  of  men,  only  having  a  worth  and 
meaning  when  contemplated  as  such,  then  that  the  lower 
should  serve,  and,  where  need  is,  give  way  to  the  interests 
of  the  highest,  were  only  beforehand  to  be  expected.' 

Here,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  something  much  behind 
the  miracle,  something  much  earlier  in  men's  view  of  the 
relations  between  God  and  his  creatures,  has  already  deter- 
mined whether  they  should  accept  or  reject  it,  and  this, 
long  before  they  have  arrived  at  the  consideration  of  this 
specific  matter. 

4.  The  Sceptical.     (Hume.) 

While  Spinoza  rested  his  objection  to  the  miracles  on 
the  ground  that  the  everlasting  laws  of  the  universe  left 
no  room  for  such,  while,  therefore,  the  form  which  the 
question  in  debate  assumed  in  his  hands  was  this,  Are 
miracles  (objectively)  possible  ?  Hume,  the  legitimate  child 
and  pupil  of  the  empiric  philosophy  of  Locke,  started  his 
objection  in  altogether  a  different  shape,  namely,  in  this. 
Are  miracles  (subjectively)  credible  ?  He  is,  in  fact,  the 
sceptic,  which, — taking  the  word  in  its  more  accurate  sense, 
not  as  a  denier  of  the  truths  of  Christianity,  but  a  doubter 

^  They  are  the  truly  vdae,  he  says  (Tract.  Theol.  Pol.  vi.),  who  aim  not 
at  this,  ut  natura  iis,  sed  contra  ut  ipsi  naturae  pareant,  utpote  qui  certe 
eciunt,  Deum  naturam  dirigere  prout  ejus  leges  universales,  non  autem 
prout  humanoe  naturoe  particulares  leges  exigunt,  adeoque  Deum  non 
solius  humani  generis,  sed  totius  naturae  rationem  habere. 


74-  THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

of  the  possibility  of  arriving  at  any  absolute  truth, — Spinoza 
is  as  far  as  possible  from  being.  To  this  question  Hume's 
answer  is  in  the  negative ;  or  rather,  in  the  true  spirit  of 
that  philosophy  •which  leaves  everything  in  uncertainty, 
*  It  is  always  more  probable  that  a  miracle  is  false  than 
true ;  it  can  therefore  in  no  case  prove  anything  else, 
since  it  is  itself  incapable  of  proof ; ' — which  thus  he 
proceeds  to  show.  In  every  case,  he  observes,  of  conflicting 
evidence,  we  weigh  the  evidence  for  and  against  the 
alleged  facts,  and  give  our  faith  to  that  side  upon  which 
the  evidence  preponderates,  with  an  amount  of  confidence 
proportioned,  not  to  the  whole  amount  of  evidence  in  its 
favour,  but  to  the  balance  which  remains  after  subtracting 
the  evidence  against  it.  Thus,  if  the  evidence  on  the  side 
of  A  might  be  set  as  =  20,  and  that  on  the  side  of  B  as 
=  15,  then  our  faith  in  A  would  remain  20  —  15  =  5  ;  we 
giving  our  faith  upon  the  side  on  which  a  balance  of 
probabilities  remains,  and  only  to  the  extent  of  that 
balance.  But  every  miracle,  he  goes  on  to  say,  is  a  case 
of  conflicting  evidence.  In  its  favour  is  the  evidence  of 
the  attesting  witnesses ;  against  it  the  testimony  of  all 
experience  which  has  gone  before,  and  which  witnesses  for 
an  unbroken  order  of  nature.  When  we  come  to  balance 
these  against  one  another,  the  only  case  in  which  the 
evidence  for  the  miracle  could  be  admitted  as  prevailing 
would  be  that  in  which  the  falseness  or  error  of  the  attesting 
witnesses  xvoulcl  he  a  greater  miracle  than  the  miracle  which 
they  affirm.  But  no  such  case  can  occur.  The  evidence 
against  a  miracle  having  taken  place  is  as  complete  as  can 
be  conceived.  Even  were  the  evidence  in  its  favour  as 
complete,  it  would  only  be  proof  against  proof,  and  absolute 
suspension  of  judgment  would  be  the  wise  man's  part. 
But  the  evidence  in  favour  of  the  miracle  never  makes 
claim  to  aiiy  such  completeness.  It  is  always  more  likely 
that  the  attesting  witnesses  were  deceived,  or  were  willing 
to  deceive,  than  that  the  miracle  took  place.     For,  however 


THE  ASSAULTS   ON   THE  MIRACLES.  75 

many  tliey  may  be,  they  must  always  be  few  compared  with 
the  multitudes  who  attest  a  fact  which  excludes  their  fact, 
namely,  the  uninterrupted  succession  of  a  natural  order  in 
the  world ;  and  those  few,  moreover,  submitted  to  divers 
warping  influences,  from  which  the  others,  nature's  wit- 
nesses, are  altogether  free.  Therefore  there  is  no  case  in 
which  the  evidence  for  any  one  miracle  is  able  to  outweigh 
the  a  priori  evidence  which  is  against  all  miracles.  Such 
is  the  conclusion  at  which  Hume  arrives.  The  argument, 
it  will  be  seen,  is  sceptical  throughout.  Hume  does  not, 
like  Spinoza,  absolutely  deny  the  possibility  of  a  miracle ; 
all  he  denies  is  that  we  can  ever  be  convinced  of  one.  Of 
two  propositions  or  assertions  that  may  he  true  which  has 
the  least  evidence  to  support  it ;  but  according  to  the 
necessary  constitution  of  our  mental  being,  we  must  give 
our  adherence  to  that  which  presents  itself  to  us  with  the 
largest  amount  of  evidence  in  its  favour. 

Here  again,  as  on  a  former  occasion,  so  long  as  we  abide 
in  the  region  of  nature,  miraculous  and  improbable,  mira- 
culous and  incredible,  may  be  admitted  as  convertible 
terms.  But  once  lift  up  the  whole  discussion  into  a 
higher  region,  once  acknowledge  something  higher  than 
nature,  a  kingdom  of  God,  and  men  the  intended  denizens 
of  it,  and  the  whole  argument  loses  its  strength  and  the 
force  of  its  conclusions.  Against  the  argument  from  ex- 
perience which  tells  against  the  miracle,  is  to  be  set,  not, 
as  Hume  asserts,  the  evidence  of  the  witnesses,  which  it  is 
quite  true  can  in  no  case  itself  be  complete  and  of  itself 
sufficient,  but  this,  ;pJus  the  anterior  probability  that  God, 
calling  men  to  live  above  nature  and  sense,  would  in  this 
manner  reveal  Himself  as  the  Lord  paramount  of  nature, 
the  breaker  through  and  slighter  of  the  apparitions  of 
sense ;  'plus  also  the  testimony  which  the  particular  miracle 
by  its  nature,  its  fitness,  the  glory  of  its  circumstances,  its 
intimate  coherence  as  a  redemptive  act  wdth  the  personality 

of  the  doer,  in  Coleridge's  words,  '  its  exact  accordance 
6 


76  THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

with  th.e  ideal  of  a  true  miracle  is  the  reason,'  gives  to  the 
conscience  that  it  is  a  divine  work.  The  moral  probabilities 
Hume  has  altogether  overlooked  and  left  out  of  account, 
and  when  they  are  admitted, — dynamic  in  the  midst  of  his 
merely  mechanic  forces, — they  disturb  and  indeed  utterly 
overbear  and  destroy  them.  His  argument  is  as  that 
fabled  giant,  unconquerable  so  long  as  it  is  permitted  to 
rest  upon  the  earth  out  of  which  it  sprung;  but  easily 
destroyed  when  once  it  is  lifted  into  a  higher  world.  It  is 
not,  as  Hume  would  fain  have  us  to  believe,  solely  an 
intellectual  question ;  but  it  is  in  fact  the  moral  condition 
of  men  which  will  ultimately  determine  whether  they  will 
believe  the  Scripture  miracles  or  not ;  this,  and  not  the 
exact  balance  of  argument  on  the  one  side  or  the  other, 
which  vdll  cause  this  scale  or  that  to  kick  the  beam. 

He  who  already  counts  it  likely  that  God  will  interfere 
for  the  higher  welfare  of  men,  who  believes  that  there  is  a 
nobler  world-order  than  that  in  which  we  live  and  move, 
and  that  it  would  be  the  blessing  of  blessings  for  that 
nobler  to  intrude  into  and  to  make  itself  felt  in  the  region 
of  this  lower,  who  has  found  that  here  in  this  world  we 
are  bound  by  heavy  laws  of  nature,  of  sin,  of  death,  which 
no  powers  that  we  now  possess  can  break,  yet  which  must 
be  broken  if  we  are  truly  to  live, — he  will  not  find  it  hard 
to  believe  the  great  miracle,  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  God 
in  the  flesh,  and  his  declaration  as  the  Son  of  God  with 
power  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead ;  because  all  the 
deepest  desires  and  longings  of  his  heart  have  yearned 
after  such  a  deliverer,  however  little  he  may  have  been 
able  even  to  dream  of  so  glorious  a  fulfilment  of  those 
longings.  And  as  he  believes  that  greatest  miracle,  so 
will  he  believe  all  other  miracles,  which,  as  satellites  of  a 
lesser  brightness,  naturally  wait  upon  that,  clustering 
round  and  drawing  their  lustre  from  the  central  brightness 
of  that  greatest.  He,  upon  the  other  hand,  to  whom  this 
world  is  all,  who  has  lost  all  sense  of  a  higher  world  wicii 


THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES.  -]-] 

which,  it  must  ouce  have  stood  connected,  who  is  disturbed 
with  no  longings  for  anything  nobler  than  it  gives,  to 
whom  '  the  kingdom  of  God '  is  an  unintelligible  phrase, 
he  will  resist,  by  an  intellectual  theory  if  he  can,  or  if  not 
by  that,  by  instinct,  the  miracle.  Everything  that  is  in 
him  predisposes  him  to  disbelieve  it  and  the  doctrines 
which  it  seals.  To  him  who  denies  thus  2inj  final  causes, 
\x\\o  does  not  believe  that  humanity  is  being  carried  forward 
under  a  mightier  leading  than  its  own  to  a  certain  and 
that  a  glorious  end,  who  looks  at  the  history  of  this  world 
and  of  man  as  that  of  a  bark  tempest-tost  long,  with  no 
haven  to  which  it  is  bound,  to  him  these  moral  probabilities 
are  no  probabilities ;  and  this  being  so,  we  should  learn 
betimes  how  futile  it  is  to  argue  with  men  about  our 
faith,  who  are  the  deniers  of  all  upon  which  any  faith  can 
be  built. ^ 

5.  The  Mikacles  only  relatively  miraculous, 
(schleiermacher.) 

Another  scheme  for  getting  rid  of  the  miraculous  ele- 
ment in  the  miracle,  one  often  united  with  Spinoza's 
a  priori  argument  against  it,^  and  brought  forward  to 
explain  the  phenomenon  of  an  apparent  miracle,  after  that 
has  shown  that  a  real  one  was  impossible,  has  been  this. 
These  works,  it  is  said,  were  relative  miracles, — miracles, 
in  other  words,  for  those  in  regard  of  whom  they  were  first 
done, — as  when  a  savage  believes  that  a  telescope  has  the 
power  of  bringing  the  far  instantaneously  near, — but  no 
miracles  in  themselves,  being  but  in  fact  the  anticipation 

^  Augustine  (De  Util.  Creel,  xvi.) :  Si  enim  Dei  providentia  uon  priB- 
sidet  rebus  liumanis,  nihil  est  da  religione  satagendum.  See  some 
valuable  remarks  on  Hume  and  on  his  position  in  Mill's  Lo^tc,  vol.  ii. 
p.  187,  2d  edit. 

*  As  by  Spinoza  himself,  Ep.  xxiii.:  Eogare  mihi  liceat  an  noa 
homunciones  tantam  naturte  cognitionem  habeamus,  ut  determinare 
possimus,  quousque  ejus  vis  et  potentia  se  extendit,  et  quid  ejus  vim 
superat  ? 


78  THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

of  discoveries  in  the  kingdom  of  nature,  tlie  works  of  one 
who,  having  penetrated  deeper  into  her  mysteries  than 
those  around  him,  could  therefore  wield  powers  which 
were  unknown,  and  bring  about  results  which  were  inex- 
plicable, to  them.'  It  must  be  evident  to  the  least 
thoughtful,  that,  however  it  may  be  sought  to  disguise 
the  fact,  the  miracle  does  thus  become  no  miracle,^  and 
the  doer  of  it  can  no  longer  be  recognized  as  commanding 
nature  in  a  way  specifically  different  from  other  men,  but 
only  as  one  who  has  a  clearer  or  earlier  insight  than  others 
into  her  laws  and  the  springs  of  her  power.  We  have 
indeed  here  nothing  else  but  a  decently  veiled  denial  of 
the  miracle  altogether.^  For  thus  it  has  no  longer  an 
eternal  significance.  The  circle  of  these  wondrous  works 
is  no  longer  a  halo  which  is  to  surround  the  head  of  him 

^  Thus  Ilase  {Lehen  Jesu,  p.  108):  Sie  sind  zwar  nothwendig  begriifen 
ira  Naturzusammenliange,  daber  nacb  diesem  iiberall  211  forscben  ist, 
aber  sie  iiberschritten  weit  die  Kenntniss  und  Kraft  der  Zeitgenossen. 
Reinbard :  Miraculum  est  mutatio  a  majiifestis  naturfe  legibus  abborrens, 
cujus  a  nobis  nulla  potest  e  viribua  naturalibus  ratio  reddi.  Bonnet 
(liecherches  Pliilosoph.  siir  les  Preuves  du  Christianismc,  Geneva,  1769) 
had  already  anticipated  this  definition  of  the  miracle. 

'^  Mirabile,  but  not  miraculum.  Augustine's  definition  in  one  place 
{De  Util.  Cred.  xvi.),  Miraculum  voco  quicquid  arduum  aut  insolitum 
supra  spem  vel  facultatem  mirantis  apparet,  is  plainly  faulty;  it  is  the 
definition  of  the  mirabile,  not  of  the  miraculum.  Aquinas  is  more  dis- 
tinct (^Summ.  Theol.  i,  qu.  no,  art.  4):  Non  sufficit  ad  rationem  mira- 
culi,  si  aliquid  fiat  pra3ter  ordinem  alicujus  naturfe  particularis,  sic  enim 
aliquis  miraculum  faceret  lapidem  sursum  projiciendo ;  ex  hoc  autem 
aliquid  dicitur  miraculum,  quod  fit  propter  ordinem  totius  naturae  creates, 
quo  sensu  solus  Deus  facit  miracula.  Nobis  enim  non  omnis  virtus 
naturse  creatte  nota ;  cum  ergo  fit  aliquid  praeter  ordinem  naturfe  creatfe 
rrobis  notfe  per  virtutem  creatam  nobis' ignotam,  est  quidem  miraculum 
quoad  nos,  sed  non  simpliciter, 

^  J.  Miiller  (Z)e  Mirac.  J.  C.  Kat.  et  Kecess.  par.  ii.  p.  i)  well  charac- 
terizes tliis  scheme :  Quid  vero  ?  num  de  miraculorura  necessitate  ordia- 
mur  a  notione  miraculi  tollenda  ?  Si  enim  ex  ea  sententia  mirabilia 
Christi  opera  e  propriis  naturfe  viribus  secimdum  hujus  legem,  at 
absconditam,  orta  sunt,  certum  et  constans  discrimen  bsec  inter  et  ilia 
quae  quotidie  in  natura  fieri  videmus,  remanet  nullum ;  omnia  fluunt 
et  miscentur ;  qufB  rerum  natura  heri  gremio  suo  operuit,  aperit  hodie ; 
quae  etiam  nunc  abscondita  sunt,  posthac  patebunt.  Si  vero,  quod  hodie 
miraculum,  eras  non  erit,  et  hodie  non  est,  sed  esse  tantum  videtur. 


THE  ASSAULTS   ON  THE  MIRACLES.  jq 

who  wi'ought  them  for  ever.  With  each  enlargement  of 
men's  knowledge  of  nature  a  star  in  his  crown  of  glory  is 
extinguished,  till  at  length  it  fades  altogether  into  the 
light  of  common  day,  nay,  rather  declares  that  it  was 
never  more  than  a  deceitful  and  meteor  fire  at  the  best. 
For  it  implies  a  serious  moral  charge  against  the  doer  of 
these  works,  if  he  vents  them  as  wonders,  as  acts  of  a 
higher  power  than  nature's,  or  allows  others  so  to  receive 
them,  when  indeed  he  entirely  ]i:nows  that  they  are 
wrought  but  according  to  her  ordinary  laws.  It  was  well 
enough,  according  to  the  spirit  in  which  he  was  working, 
for  one  of  the  early  conquerors  of  the  New  World  to  make 
the  Indians,  whom  he  wished  to  terrify,  believe  that  in  his 
displeasure  with  them  he  would  at  a  certain  hour  darken 
the  moon,  when  indeed  he  did  but  foreknow  an  eclipse  of 
her  orb : '  but  in  the  kingdom  of  truth  to  use  artifices  like 
these  were  nothing  else  but  by  lies  to  seek  to  overturn  the 
kingdom  of  lies. 

Schleiermacher^  endeavours  so  to  guard  this  view  as 
that  it  shall  not  appear  an  entire  denial  of  the  miracles,  to 
dress  it  out  and  prevent  its  nakedness  from  being  seen ; 
but  he  does  not,  in  fact,  lift  himself  above  it.  Christ,  he 
says,  had  not  merely  this  deeper  acquaintance  with  nature 
than  any  other  that  ever  lived,  but  stands  in  a  more  in- 
ward connexion  with  nature.  He  is  able  to  evoke,  as  from 
her  hidden  recesses  and  her  most  inward  sanctuary,  powers 
which  none  other  could  ;  although  still  powers  -which  lay 
in  her  already.  These  facts,  which  seem  exceptional, 
were  deeply  laid  in  the  first  constitution  of  the  law  ;  and 
now,  at  this  turning-point  of  the  world's  history,  by  the 
providence  of  God,  who  had  arranged  all  things  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world  for  the   glory  of  his  Son,    did  at 

^  Plutarch  (De  Def.  Orac.  xii.)  mentions  exactly  the  same  trick  of  a 
Thessalian  sorceress.  A  late  writer  upon  the  rule  of  the  Jesuits  in 
Paraguay  accuses  them  of  using  artifices  of  the  like  kind  for  acquiring 
and  maintaining  an  influence  over  their  converts. 

*  Der  Chris'l.  Glaube,  vol.  i.  p.  looj  vol.  ii.  p.  135. 


8o  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

his  bidding  emerge.  Yet,  single  and  witiiont  analogy  as 
these  '  wonders  of  preformation '  (for  so  one  has  called 
them)  were,  they  belonged  to  the  law  as  truly  as,  when  the 
aloe  flowers,  or  is  said  to  flower,  once  in  a  hundred  years, 
it  yet  does  this  according  to  the  law  of  its  being.  For 
ninety  and  nine  years  it  would  have  seemed  to  men  not  to 
be  the  nature  of  the  plant  to  flower,  yet  the  flowering  of 
the  hundredth  year  is  only  the  unfolding  of  a  germ  latent 
in  the  heart  of  the  plant  from  the  beginning. 

We  see  in  this  scheme  that  attempt  to  reconcile  and 
atone  between  revelation  and  science,  which  was  the  main 
purpose  of  all  Schleiermacher's  writings.  Yet  is  it  im- 
possible to  accept  the  reconciliation  which  he  ofiers ;  as  it 
is  really  made,  however  skilfully  the  sacrifice  may  be  con- 
cealed, altogether  at  the  expense  of  the  miracle' — which, 
in  fact,  is  no  miracle,  if  it  lay  in  nature  already,  if  it  was 
only  the  evoking  of  forces  latent  therein,  not  a  new  thing, 
not  the  bringing  in  of  the  novel  powers  of  a  higher  world  ; 
if  the  mysterious  processes  and  powers  by  which  those 
works  were  brought  about,  had  been  only  undiscovered 
hitherto,  and  not  undiscoverable,  by  the  efl'orts  of  human 
inquiry.  "^ 

Augustine  has  been  sometimes  quoted,  but  altogether 
unjustly,  as  maintaining  this  scheme  of  the  relatively 
miraculous.^  It  is  quite  true  that,  when  arguing  with  the 
heathen,  he  does  demand  why  they  refuse  to  give  credence 
to  the  Scripture  miracles,  when  they  believe  so  much  that 

^  Schleierraacher  indeed  himself,  in  some  letters  of  his  in  the  Studicn 
mid  Kritikeyi,  1838,  confesses  as  much,  and  does  not  shrink  from  this  con- 
clusion :  '  If  they  [the  miracles]  he  really  regarded  as  matters  of  fact,  \.-q 
must  grant  that  so  far  as  they  have  heen  produced  in  nature,  analogies  to 
them  must  be  also  found  in  nature  ;  and  thus  the  old  idea  of  a  miracle 
must  be  given  up,' 

"  See  Kostlin,  De  Miractdormn  Natm-d  et  Batione,  i860,  p.  9. 

^  A  certain  favouring  of  this  explanation  of  the  miracle  has  in  like 
manner  been  sometimes  ascribed  to  Bishop  Butler  on  the  strength  of  a 
passage  in  his  Analogy,  pt.  i,  c.  2 ;  in  which,  however,  the  understanding 
reader  will  at  once  recognize  that  he  has  quite  another  purpose  in  view; 
eee  Mozley,  Eiyht  Lectures  on  Miracles,  p.  156. 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES.  8i 

is  inexplicable  by  any  laws  wbich  their  experience  sup- 
plied ;  that  lie  instances  some  real,  some  also  entirely  fabul- 
ous, phenomena  of  the  natural  world,  such  as  fountains 
cold  by  night  and  hot  by  day, — others  which  extinguished 
a  lighted  torch,  but  set  on  fire  an  extinguished  one, — 
stones  which,  once  kindled,  could  not  be  quenched, — 
magnets  which  attracted  iron,  and  other  wonders,  to 
which  he  and  they  gave  credence  alike.'  But  it  is  not 
herein  his  meaning  to  draw  down  the  miracles  to  a  level 
with  natural  appearances,  hitherto  unexplained,  but 
capable  of  and  waiting  their  explanation.  Eather  in  these 
natural  appearances  he  sees  direct  interpositions  of  the 
Divine  Power ;  he  does  not  reckon  that  any  added 
knowledge  will  bring  them  under  laws  of  human  ex- 
perience, and  therefore  he  lifts  them  up  to  a  level  with 
the  miracles.  He  did  not  merge  the  miracles  in  nature, 
but  drew  up  a  portion  of  nature  into  the  region  of  the 
miraculous.  However  greatly  as  a  natural  philosopher  he 
may  have  been  here  at  fault,  yet  all  extenuating  of  the 
miracle  was  far  from  him  ;  indeed  he  ever  refers  it  to  the 
omnipotence  of  God  as  to  its  ultimate  ground.^ 

When  he  affirms  that  much  seems  to  be  against  nature, 
but  nothing  truly  is,  this  may  sound  at  first  like  the  same 
statement  of  the  miraculous  being  such  merely  in  relation 
to  certain  persons  and  certain  stages  of  our  knowledge  of 
this  material  world.  But  it  is  only  in  sound  that  it  is 
similar.  He  has  quite  a  different  thought  of  nature  from 
any  that  will  admit  such  to  be  his  meaning.  Natiire  is 
for  him  but  the  outward  expression  of  the  will  of  God ; 
and  all  which  he  af&rms  is,  that  God  never  can  be  con- 
trary to  God  ;  that  there  can  be  no  collision  of  his  wills  ; 
that  whatever  comes  in  is  as  true  an  order,  the  result 
of  as  real  a  law,  as  that  which  gives  place  to  it ;  which 
must  needs  be,  since  it  has  come  in  according  to  the  will  of 

'  De  Civ.  Dei,  xxi.  5.  "  TUd.  xxi.  7. 


82  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

God,  wliicli  will  is  itself  the  highest  order,  and  law,  and 
harmony.^ 

6.  The  Eationalistic.     (Paulus.) 

The  rise  of  rationalism, — which  term  I  use  for  con- 
venience sake,  and  without  at  all  consenting  to  its  fitness, 
for  it  is  as  absurd  a  misnomer  as  when  in  the  last 
century  that  was  called/ree-thinking,  which  was  assuredly 
to  end  in  the  slavery  of  all  thought, — seems  to  have  been 
in  this  manner.  It  may  be  looked  at  as  an  escape  from 
the  conclusions  of  mere  Deists  concerning  Christ's  Person 
and  his  Word,  upon  the  part  of  some,  who  had  indeed 
abandoned  the  true  faith  of  the  Church  concerning  its 
Head,  yet  were  not  prepared  to  give  up  the  last  lingering 
vestiges  of  their  respect  for  Holy  Scripture  and  for  Him 
of  whom  Scripture  testified.  They  with  whom  this  sys- 
tem grew  up  could  no  longer  believe  the  miracles,  they 
could  no  longer  believe  the  great  miracle  in  which  all 
other  are  easily  included,  a  Son  of  God  in  the  Church's 
sense  of  the  term.  They,  too,  were  obliged  to  fall  in  with 
the  first  principles  of  the  infidel  adversary,  that  any  who 
professed  to  accomplish  miracles  was  either  self-deceived 
or  a  deceiver,  even  as  those  who  related  such  as  having 
hapjDened  must  be  regarded  as  standing  in  the  same 
dilemma.  But  what  if  it  could  be  shown  that  Christ  never 
professed  to  do  any  miracles,  nor  the  sacred  historians  to 
record  any  ?  if  it  could  be  shown  that  the  sacred  narratives, 
rightly  read,  gave  no  countenance  to  any  such  assumption, 
and  that  it  was  only  the  lovers  of,  and  cravers  after,  the 
marvellous,  who  had  found  any  miracles  there  ; — the 
books  themselves  having  been  intended  to  record  merely 

^  See  the  quotation  from  Augustine,  p.  12.  That  he  had  perfectly 
seized  the  essential  property  of  a  miracle,  and  distinguished  it  broadly 
from  tSie  relatively  miraculous,  is  plain  from  innumerable  passages. 
Thus  {De  Civ.  Dei,  x.  16):  Miracula,  .  .  .  non  ea  dico  qufe  intervallis 
temporuni  occultis  ipsius  mundi  caussis,  verumtamen  sub  divina  provi- 
dentia  constitutis  et  ordinatis  monstrosa  contingunt,  quales  sunt  inusitati 
partus  animjilimu,  et  cajlo  terraque  reriun  inaolita  fticies. 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  3JIEACLES.  83 

natural  events  ?  "Were  not  this  an  escape  from  the  whole 
difficulty  ?  The  divine,  it  is  true,  in  these  narratives 
would  disappear ;  that,  however,  they  did  not  desire  to 
save ;  that  they  had  already  given  up  :  but  the  human 
would  be  vindicated ;  the  good  faith,  the  honesty,  the 
entire  credibility  of  the  Scripture  historians,  would  remain 
unimpeached.  And  in  Christ  Himself  there  would  be  still 
that  to  which  they  could  look  up  with  reverence  and  love  ; 
they  could  still  believe  in  Him  as  the  truthful  founder  of  a 
religion  which  they  shrunk  from  the  thought  of  renoun- 
cing altogether.  No  longer  being,  as  the  Church  declared 
Him,  the  worker  of  wonders,  clothed  with  power  from  on 
high,  nor  professing  to  be  that  which  He  was  not,  as  the 
blasphemers  affirmed.  He  would  still  abide  for  them,  the 
highest  pattern  of  goodness  which  the  world  hitherto  had 
seen,  as  He  went  up  and  down  the  world,  healing  and 
blessing,  though  with  only  the  same  means  at  his  command 
as  were  possessed  by  other  men. 

Their  attempt  was  certainly  a  bold  one.  To  suffer  the 
sacred  text  to  stand,  and  yet  to  find  no  miracles  in  it,  did 
appear  a  hopeless  task.  For  this,  it  must  be  always  re- 
membered, altogether  distinguishes  this  system  from  later 
mythic  theories,  that  it  does  accept  the  New  Testament  as 
entirely  historic ;  it  does  appeal  to  the  word  of  Scripture  as 
the  ground  and  proof  of  its  assertions  ;  its  great  assertion 
being  that  the  Evangelists  did  not  intend  to  relate  miracles, 
but  ordinary  fxcts  of  everyday  experience,  works  done  by 
Jesus,  now  of  friendship  and  humanity,  now  of  medical 
skill,  now,  it  might  be,  of  chance  and  good  fortune,  or 
other  actions  which  from  one  cause  or  other  seemed  to 
them  of  sufficient  significance  to  be  worth  recording. 
Thus  Christ,  they  say,  did  not  heal  an  impotent  man  at 
Bethesda,  but  only  detected  an  impostor;  He  did  not 
change  water  into  wine  at  Cana,  but  brought  in  a  new 
supply  of  wine  when  that  of  the  house  was  exhausted  ; 
He  did  not  multiply  the  loaves,  but,  distributing  his  own 


84  THE  ASSAULTS  OX  THE  MIRACLES. 

and  his  disciples'  little  store,  set  an  example  of  liberality, 
wliicli  was  quickly  followed  by  others  who  had  like  stores, 
and  thus  there  was  sufficient  for  all;  He  did  not  cure 
blindness  otherwise  than  any  skilful  oculist  might  do  it ; — 
which  indeed,  they  observe,  is  clear ;  for  with  his  own 
lips  He  declared  that  He  needed  light  for  so  delicate  an 
operation — '  I  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  Me, 
while  it  is  day  ;  the  night  cometh,  when  no  man  can  work' 
(John  ix.  4) ;  He  did  not  walk  on  the  sea,  but  on  the 
shore  ;  He  did  not  tell  Peter  to  find  a  stater  in  the  fish's 
mouth,  but  to  catch  as  many  fish  as  would  sell  for  that 
money;  He  did  not  raise  Lazarus  from  the  dead,  but 
guessed  from  the  description  of  his  disease  that  he  was 
only  in  a  swoon,  and  happily  found  it  as  He  had  guessed. 
This  scheme,  which  many  had  already  tried  here  and 
there,  but  which  first  appeared  full  blown  and  consistently 
carried  through  in  the  Commentary  of  Dr.  Paulus,  pub- 
lished in  1800,  did  not  long  survive  in  its  first  vigour. 
It  perished  under  blows  received  from  many  and  the  most 
different  quarters ;  for,  not  to  speak  of  a  reviving  faith 
in  the  hearts  of  many,  that  God  could  do  more  than  man 
could  understand,  even  the  children  of  this  world  directed 
against  it  the  keenest  shafts  of  their  ridicule.  Every 
philologist,  nay,  every  man  who  believed  that  language 
had  any  laws,  was  its  natural  enemy,  for  it  stood  only  by 
the  violation  of  all  these  laws.  Even  the  very  advance  of 
unbelief  was  fatal  to  it,  for  in  it  there  was  a  slight  linger- 
ing respect  to  the  Word  of  God  ;  moved  by  which  respect, 
it  sought  forcibly  to  bring  that  Word  into  harmony  with 
its  theory,  as  a  better  alternative  than  the  renouncing  of 
the  authority  of  that  Word  altogether.  But  when  men 
arose  who  did  not  shrink  from  the  otber  alternative,  who 
had  no  desire  to  hold  by  that  Word  at  all,  then  there  was 
nothing  to  hinder  them  from  at  once  coming  back  to  the 
common-sense  view  of  the  subject,  one  which  no  art  could 
long  succeed  in  concealing,  namely  that  the  Evangelists 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES.  85 

did  at  any  rate  intend  to  record  supernatural  events. 
Those  to  whom  the  Scriptures  were  no  authority  were, 
thus  far  at  least,  more  likely  to  interpret  them  aright, 
that  they  were  not  under  the  temptation  to  twist  and 
pervert  them,  so  to  bring  them  into  apparent  agreement 
with  their  own  systems. 

This  scheme  of  interpretation,  thus  assailed  from  so 
many  sides,  and  itself  merely  artificial,  quickly  succumbed. 
And  now,  even  in  the  land  of  its  birth,  it  has  entirely 
perished ;  on  the  one  side  a  deeper  faith,  on  the  other  a 
more  rampant  unbelief,  have  encroached  on,  and  wholly 
swallowed  up,  the  territory  which  it  occupied  for  a  while. 
It  is  indeed  so  little  the  form  in  which  an  assault  on 
Revelation  will  ever  again  clothe  itself,  and  may  be  so 
entirely  regarded  as  one  of  the  cast-off  garments  of 
unbelief,  now  desjjised  and  trodden  under  foot  even  of 
those  who  once  glorified  themselves  in  it,  that  I  have  not 
alluded,  save  very  slightly  and  passingly,  to  it  in  the  body 
of  my  book.  Once  or  twice  I  have  noticed  its  curiosities 
of  interpretation,  its  substitutions,  as  they  have  been 
happily  termed,  of  philological  fov  historical  vfonders.  The 
reader  who  is  curious  to  see  how  Dr.  Paulus  and  his  com- 
peers arrived  at  the  desired  result  of  exhausting  the 
narrative  of  its  miraculous  element,  will  find  specimens  in 
the  notes  upon  The  feeding  of  the  Jive  thousand,  and  The 
stater  in  the  fish's  mouth. 

7.  The  Histoeico-Ckitical.     (Woolstox,  Steauss.) 

The  latest  assault  upon  the  miracles  may  not  unfitly  be 
termed  the  historico-critical.  It  declares  that  the  records 
of  them  are  so  full  of  contradictions,  psychological  and 
other  improbabilities,  discrepancies  between  the  account 
Df  one  Evangelist  and  another,  that  upon  close  handling 
they  crumble  to  pieces,  and  are  unable  to  maintain  their 
ground  as  history.     Among  the  English  Deists  of  the  last 


86  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

ceiituiy,  "VVoolston  especially  addressed  himself  in  this  way 
to  the  underniining  the  historic  credit  of  these  narratives. 
He  -was  brought  to  this  evil  work  in  a  singular  way,  and 
abides  a  mournful  example  of  the  extremes  to  which  spite 
and  mortified  vanity  may  carry  a  weak  man,  though,  as 
all  testimonies  concur  in  acknowledging,  at  one  time  of 
estimable  conversation,  and  favourably  known  for  his 
temperate  life,  his  charity  to  the  poor,  and  other  evidences 
of  an  inward  piety.  Born  in  1669,  and  educated  at  Cam- 
bridge, where  he  became  a  fellow  of  Sidney,  he  first 
attracted  unfavourable  notice  by  a  certain  crack-brained 
enthusiasm  for  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  Scripture, 
which  he  carried  to  all  lengths.  Whether  he  owed  this 
bias  to  the  works  of  Philo  and  Origen,  or  only  strengthened 
and  nourished  an  already  existing  predilection  by  the 
study  of  their  writings,  is  not  exactly  clear ;  but  it  became 
a  sort  of  '  fixed  idea  '  in  his  mind.  At  first,  although  just 
offence  was  taken  at  more  than  one  j)ublication  of  his,  in 
which  his  allegorical  system  was  carried  out  at  the  expense 
apparently  of  the  historic  truth  of  the  Scripture,  yet,  as  it 
was  not  considered  that  he  meant  any  mischief,  as  it  was 
not  likely  that  he  would  exert  any  very  wide  influence,  he 
was  suffered  to  follow  his  own  way,  unvisited  by  any 
serious  censures  from  the  higher  authorities  of  the  Church. 
Meeting,  however,  with  opposition  in  many  quarters,  and 
unable  to  carry  the  clergy  with  him,  he  broke  out  at  last 
in  unmeasured  invectives  against  them,  and  in  a  virulent 
pamphlet'  styled  them  *  slaves  of  the  letter,' '  Baal-priests,' 
'blind  leaders  of  the  blind,'  and  the  like,  and  was  on 
account  of  this  pamphlet  deprived  of  his  fellowship  (1721). 
From  this  time  it  seemed  as  if  an  absolute  fury  possessed 
him.  Not  merely  the  Church,  but  Christianity  itself,  was 
the  object  of  his  attack.     "Whether  his  allegorical  system 

*  In  bis  Letter  to  the  Beo.  Dr.  Bennett  ttpon  this  question,  Whether  the 
Quakers  do  not  the  nearest  of  any  other  sect  resemble  the  primitive  Christians 
in  princi2)le  and  jtrcctices.     By  Aristobulus.    London,  1720. 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES.  87 

of  interpretation  had  indeed  ended,  as  it  was  very  likely  to 
end,  in  depriving  liim  of  all  faith  in  God's  Word,  and  he 
professed  to  retain  his  veneration  for  its  spiritual  meaning, 
only  that  he  might,  under  shelter  of  that,  more  securely 
advance  to  the  assault  of  its  historical  foundations,  or 
whether  he  did  still  retain  this  in  truth,  it  was  now  at  any 
rate  only  subordinate  to  his  purposes  of  revenge.  To 
these  he  was  ready  to  offer  uj)  every  other  consideration. 
When,  then,  in  that  great  controversy  which  was  raging 
in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  the  defenders  of  re- 
vealed religion  entrenched  themselves  behind  the  miracles, 
as  defences  from  which  they  could  never  be  driven,  as 
irrefragable  proofs  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity, 
Woolston  undertook,  by  the  engines  of  his  allegorical 
intei'pretation,  to  dislodge  them  from  these  also,  and  with 
this  view  published  his  notorious  Letters  on  the  Miracles.^ 

*  These  six  Letters,  first  publialied  as  separate  pamphlets  between 
\-lz-]-r^,  had  an  immense  circulation,  and  were  read  with  the  greatest 
avidity.  Voltaire,  who  was  in  England  just  at  the  time  of  their  publi- 
cation, says  that  thirty  thousand  copies  were  sold,  and  that  large  packets 
were  forwarded  to  the  American  colonies.  In  the  copy  I  am  using,  the 
different  letters  range  from  the  third  to  the  sixth  edition,  and  this  almost 
immediately  after  their  first  publication.  Swift,  in  his  lines  on  his  own 
death,  written  1731,  quite  consents  with  Voltaire's  account  of  the  im- 
mense popularity  which  they  enjoyed;  and  makes  Lintot,  the  bookseller, 
say,— 

'  Here's  Woolston's  tracts,  the  twelfth  edition, 

'Tis  read  by  every  policitian : 

The  country  members  when  in  town 

To  all  their  boroughs  send  them  down : 

You  never  met  a  thing  so  smart ; 

The  courtiers  have  them  all  by  heai-t  \ '  &c. 

Their  circulation  was  so  great,  and  their  mischief  so  wide,  that  above 
sixty  answers  were  published  within  a  very  short  period.  Gibson,  then 
Bishop  of  Loudon,  addressed  five  pastoral  letters  to  his  diocese  against 
them ;  and  other  chief  divines  of  England,  as  Sherlock,  Pearce,  Small- 
brooke,  found  it  needful  to  answer  them.  Of  the  replies  which  I  have 
seen,  Smallbrooke's  (Bit^hop  of  St.  David's)  Vindication  of  our  Saviour's 
Miracles,  1729,  is  the  most  learned  and  the  best.  But  one  cannot  help 
being  painfully  struck  uptm  this  and  other  occasions  with  the  poverty 
and  feebleness  of  the  anti-deistical  literature  of  England  in  that  day  of 
need ;  the  low  grounds  which  it  occupies ;   the  little  enthusiasm  which 


S8  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

It  is  his  iiianner  in  these  to  take  certain  miracles  which 
Christ  did,  or  which  were  wrought  in  relation  of  Him,  two 
or  three  in  a  letter ;  he  then  seeks  to  show  that,  understood 
in  their  literal  sense,  they  are  stuffed  so  full  with  extrava- 
gances, contradictions,  absurdities,  that  no  reasonable  man 
can  suppose  Christ  actually  to  have  wrought  them  ;  while 
as  little  could  the  Evangelists,  as  honest  men,  men  who  had 
the  credit  of  their  Lord  at  heart,  have  intended  to  record 
them  as  actually  wrought,  or  desired  us  to  receive  them  as 
other  than  allegories,  spiritual  truths  clothed  in  the  garb 
of  historic  events.  The  enormous  difference  between  him- 
self and  those  early  Church  writers,  to  whom  he  appeals, 
and  whose  views  he  professes  to  be  only  re-asserting, — a 
difference  of  which  it  is  impossible  that  he  could  have 
been  ignora.nt, — is  this  :  they  said.  This  history,  being 
real,  has  also  a  deeper  ideal  sense  ;  he  upon  the  contrary, 
Since  it  is  impossible  that  this  history  can  be  real,  therefore 
it  must  have  a  spiritual  significance.  They  build  upon  the 
establishment  of  the  historic  sense,  he  upon  its  ruins.' 

When  he  desires  to  utter  grosser  blasphemies  than  in 
his  own  person  he  dares,  or  than  would  befit  the  position 

the  Ccause  awakened  in  its  defenders.  The  paltry  shifts  with  which 
Woolston  sought  to  evade  the  consequences  of  his  bLasphemy, — and  there 
is  an  infinite  meanness  in  the  way  in  which  he  professes,  while  blas- 
pheming against  the  works  of  Christ,  to  be  oi\\j  assailing  them  in  the 
letter  that  he  may  vindicate  them  in  the  spirit, — failed  to  protect  him 
from  the  pains  and  penalties  of  the  law.  He  was  fined  twenty-five 
pounds  for  each  of  his  Letters,  sentenced  to  be  imprisoned  for  a  year, 
and  was  not  to  be  released  till  he  could  find  sureties  for  his  good 
behaviour.  These  he  was  unable  to  procure,  and  died  in  prison  in 
1731. 

^  Their  canon  was  ever  this  of  Gregory  the  Great  (Ilofn.  xl.  in  Evang.) : 
Tunc  namque  allegorise  fructus  suaviter  carpitur,  cum  prius  per  histo- 
rian! in  veritatis  radice  solidatur;  and  they  abound  in  such  earnest  warn- 
ings as  this  of  Augustine's :  Ante  omnia  tamen,  fratres,  hoc  in  nomine 
Dei  admonemus,  ut  quando  auditis  exponi  Sacras  Scripturas  narrantes 
quae  gesta  sunt,  prius  illud  quod  lectum  est  credatis  sic  gestum  quomodo 
lectura  est,  ne  subtracto  fundamento  rei  gestse,  quasi  in  aere  quseretis 
gedificare.  Compare  what  he  saya  on  the  history  of  Jonah,  Ep,  cii.  qu, 
vi.  33. 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES.  89 

whicli  lie  has  assumed  from  wlience  to  assault  Eevelation, 
he  introduces  a  Jewish  Eabbi,  and  suffers  him  to  speak 
without  restraint,  himself  only  observing,  *  This  is  what 
an  adversary  might  say ;  to  these  accusations  we  Christians 
expose  ourselves,  so  long  as  we  cleave  to  the  historic 
letter ;  we  only  can  evade  their  force  by  forsaking  that, 
and  holding  fast  the  allegorical  meaning  alone.'  I  shall 
not  (as  it  is  not  needful)  offend  the  Christian  reader  by 
the  reproduction  of  any  of  his  coarser  ribaldry,  which  has 
sufficient  cleverness  to  have  proved  mischievous  enough ; 
but  will  show  by  a  single  example  the  manner  in  which  he 
seeks  to  make  weak  points  in  the  Scripture  narratives. 
He  is  dealing  with  the  miracle  of  the  man  sick  of  the 
palsy,  who  was  let  through  the  broken  roof  of  the  house 
where  Jesus  was,  and  thereupon  healed  (Mark  ii.  1-12). 
But  how,  he  demands,  should  there  have  been  such  a 
crowd  to  hear  Jesus  preach  at  Capernaum,  where  He  was 
so  well  known,  and  so  little  admired  ?  And  then,  if  there 
was  that  crowd,  what  need  of  such  urgent  haste  ?  it  was 
but  waiting  an  hour  or  two,  and  the  multitude  would  have 
dispersed ;  '  I  should  have  thought  their  faith  might  have 
worked  patience.'  Why  did  not  Jesus  tell  the  people  to 
make  way  ?  would  they  not  have  done  so  readily,  since  a 
miracle  was  the  very  thing  they  wanted  to  see  ?  How 
should  the  pulleys,  ropes,  and  ladder  have  been  at  hand  to 
haul  the  sick  man  up  ?  How  strange  that  they  should 
have  had  hatchets  and  other  tools  ready  at  hand,  to  break 
through  the  spars  and  rafters  of  the  roof;  and  stranger 
still,  that  the  good  man  of  the  house  should  have  endured, 
without  a  remonstrance,  his  property  to  be  so  injured ! 
How  did  those  below  escape  without  hurt  from  the  falling 
tiles  and  plaster?  And  if  there  were  a  door  in  the  roof, 
as  some,  to  mitigate  the  difficulty,  tell  us,  why  did  not 
Jesus  go  up  to  the  roof,  and  there  speak  the  healing  word, 
and  so  spare  all  this  trouble  and  damage  and  danger  ? 
But  enough ; — it  is  evident  that  this  style  of  objection 


90  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIBACLES. 

could  be  infinitely  multiplied.  There  is  always  in  every 
story  sometliing  else  that  might  have  happened  besides 
the  thing  that  did  happen.  It  is  after  this  taking  to 
pieces  of  the  narrative,  this  triumphant  showing,  as  he 
affirms,  that  it  cannot  stand  in  the  letter,  that  he  proceeds, 
as  a  sort  of  salvo,  to  say  it  may  very  well  stand  in  its 
spirit,  as  an  allegory  and  symbol  of  something  else ;  and 
that  so,  and  so  only,  it  was  intended.  This  is  what  he 
offers  by  way  of  this  higher  meaning  in  the  present  case  : 
By  the  palsy  of  this  man  is  signified  '  a  dissoluteness  of 
morals  and  unsteadiness  of  faith  and  principles,  which  is 
the  condition  of  mankind  at  present,  who  want  Jesus'  help 
for  the  cure  of  it.'  The  four  bearers  are  the  four  Evan- 
gelists, '  on  whose  faith  and  doctrine  mankind  is  to  be 
carried  unto  Christ,'  The  house  to  the  top  of  which  he  is 
to  be  carried  is  *the  intellectual  edifice  of  the  world, 
otherwise  called  Wisdom's  house.'  But  '  to  the  sublime 
sense  of  the  Scriptures,  called  the  top  of  the  house,  is  man 
to  be  taken ;  he  is  not  to  abide  in  the  low  and  literal 
sense  of  them.'  Then  if  he  dare  to  '  open  the  house  of 
wisdom,  he  will  presently  be  admitted  to  the  presence  and 
knowledge  of  Jesus.'  * 

^  Fourth  Discourse  on  the  Miracles,  pp.  51-67.  Strauss's  own  judg- 
ment of  bis  predecessor  in  this  line  very  much  agrees  with  that  given 
above.  He  says,  '  Woolston's  whole  presentation  of  the  case  veers 
between  these  alternatives.  If  we  are  determined  to  hold  fast  the 
miracles  as  actual  history,  then  they  forfeit  all  divine  character,  and 
sink  down  into  unworthy  tricks  and  common  frauds.  Uo  we  refuse,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  let  go  the  divine  in  these  nan-atives,  then  must  we, 
with  the  sacrifice  of  their  historic  character,  understand  them  only  as 
the  setting  forth,  in  historic  guise,  of  certain  spiritual  truths ;  for  which, 
indeed,  the  authority  of  the  chiefest  allegorists  in  the  Church,  as  Origen 
and  Augustine  and  others,  may  be  adduced ; — yet  so,  that  Woolston  im- 
putes falsely  to  them  the  intention  of  thrusting  out,  as  he  would  do,  the 
literal  interpretation  by  the  allegorical  altogether ;  when  indeed  they,  a 
few  instances  on  Oiigen'a  part  being  excepted,  are  inclined  to  let  both 
explanations  stand,  the  one  beside  the  other.  Woolston's  statement  of 
the  case  may  leave  a  doubt  to  which  of  the  two  alternatives  that  he  sets 
over  against  one  another,  he  with  his  own  judgment  inclines.  If  one 
calls  to  mind,  that  before  he  came  forward  as  an  opponent  of  Christianity 


THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES.  91 

Not  very  different  is  Strauss's  own  method  of  proceeding. 
He  wields  the  same  weapons  of  destructive  criticism, 
thinking  to  show  how  each  history  will  crumble  at  his 
touch,  resolve  into  a  heap  of  improbabilities,  which  no  one 
can  any  longer  maintain.  It  needs  not  to  say  that  he  is 
a  more  accomplished  adversary  than  Woolston,  with  far 
ampler  resources  at  command, — more,  if  not  of  his  own, 
yet  of  other  men's  learning ;  inheriting  as  he  does  all  the 
negative  criticism  of  the  last  hundred  years,  of  an  epoch, 
that  is,  which  has  been  suificiently  fruitful  in  this  kind. 
Here  indeed  is  in  great  part  the  secret  of  the  vast 
sensation  which  his  work  for  a  season  produced.  All  that 
was  scattered  up  and  down  in  many  books  he  has  brought 
together  and  gathered  into  a  single  focus.  What  other 
men  had  spoken  faintly  and  with  reserve,  he  has  spoken 
out;  has  been  bold  to  give  utterance  to  all  which  was 
trembling  upon  the  lips  of  numbers,  but  which,  from  one 
cause  or  another,  they  had  shrunk  from  openly  avowing. 
At  the  same  time  in  the  treatment  of  the  miracles, — for 
with  that  only  we  have  now  to  do, — there  are  differences 
between  him  and  Woolston.  He  unites  in  his  own  person 
the  philosophical  and  the  critical  assailant  of  these.  He 
starts  from  the  philosophic  ground  of  Spinoza,  that  the 
miracle  is  impossible,  since  the  laws  of  nature  are  the  only 
and  the  necessary  laws  of  God  and  of  his  manifestation ; 
and  he  then  proceeds  to  the  critical  examination  of  the 
evangelical  miracles  in  detail ;  but  of  course  in  each  case 

as  received  in  his  day,  he  occupied  himself  with  allegorical  interpretations 
of  the  Scripture,  one  might  regard  this  as  the  opinion  which  was  most 
truly  his  own.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  all  that  he  can  adduce  of  incou- 
gTuities  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  miracle  histories  is  brought  forward 
with  such  one-sided  zeal,  and  so  colours  the  whole  with  its  mocking 
tone,  that  one  must  rather  conjecture  that  the  Deist  seeks  only,  hy 
urging  the  allegorical  sense,  to  secure  his  own  rear,  that  so  he  may  the 
more  boldly  let  himself  loose  on  the  literal  meaning '  (Leben  Jem,  3d 
edit.  vol.  i.  p.  14.).  There  is  a  very  accurate  and  carefully  written  account 
of  Woolston,  and  his  life  and  writings,  in  Lechler,  Geschichte  dcs  Eiuj- 
h'schen  Dejswn/s,  pp.  289-311. 


92  THE  ASSAULTS  ON  THE  MIRACLES. 

to  the  trial  of  that  which  is  already  implicitly  tried  and 
condemned.  Thus,  if  he  is  ever  at  a  loss,  if  any  of  them 
give  him  trouble,  if  they  oppose  a  too  stubborn  resistance 
to  the  powerful  solvents  which  he  applies,  threatening  to 
stand  in  despite  of  all,  he  immediately  falls  back  on  his 
philosophic  ground,  and  exclaims,  *  But  if  we  admit  it  was 
thus,  then  we  should  have  here  a  miracle,  and  we  have 
started  from  the  first  principle,  that  such  is  inconceivable.' 
This  mockery  in  every  case  he  repeats,  trying  them  one  by 
one,  which  have  all  been  condemned  by  him  beforehand 
in  the  gross. 

There  is,  too,  this  further  difference,  that  while  "Woolston 
professed  to  consider  the  miracles  as  the  conscious  clothing 
of  spiritual  truth,  allegories  devised  artificially,  and,  so  to 
speak,  in  cold  blood,  for  the  setting  forth  of  the  truths 
of  the  kingdom,  Strauss  gives  them  a  freer  birth  and  a 
somewhat  nobler  origin.  They  are  the  halo  of  glory  with 
which  the  Infant  Church  gradually  and  without  any 
purposes  of  deceit  clothed  its  Founder  and  Head.  His 
mighty  personality,  of  which  it  was  livingly  conscious, 
caused  it  ever  to  surround  Him  with  new  attributes  of 
glory.  All  that  men  had  ever  craved  and  longed  for — 
deliverance  from  physical  evil,  dominion  over  the  crushing 
powers  of  nature,  victory  over  death  itself, — all  that  had 
ever  in  a  lesser  measure  been  attributed  to  any  other, — 
they  lent  in  larger  abundance,  in  unrestrained  fulness,  to 
Him  whom  they  felt  greater  than  all.  The  Church  in  fact 
made  its  Christ,  and  not  Christ  his  Church.^ 

With  one  only  observation  I  will  pass  on,  not  detaining 
the  reader  any  longer  from  more  pleasant  and  more  pro- 
fitable portions  of  the  subject.  It  is  this, — that  here,  as 
so  often,  we  find  the  longings  and  cravings  of  men  after  a 
redemption,  in  the  widest  sense  of  that  word,  made  to 
throw  suspicion  upon  Him  in  whom  these  longings  and 

*  See  tlie  very  remarkable  chapter,  anticipating  so  mucli  of  modern 
(Speculation  on  this  subject,  in  Augustine,  De  Civ.  Dei,  xxii.  6. 


THE  ASSAULTS  017  THE  MIRACLES.  93 

cravings  are  affirmed  to  have  been  satisfied.  But  if  we 
believe  a  divine  life  stirring  at  the  root  of  our  humanity, 
the  depth  and  universality  of  such  longings  is  a  proof 
rather  that  they  were  meant  some  day  to  find  their  satis- 
faction, and  not  always  to  be  mere  hopes  and  dreams; 
and  if  so,  in  whom,  but  in  Him  whom  we  preach  and 
believe — in  whom,  but  in  Christ?  What  other  beside 
Him  could,  with  the  slightest  show  of  reason,  be  put 
forward  as  a  fulfiller  of  the  world's  hopes,  the  realizer  of 
the  world's  dreams  ?  If  we  do  not  believe  in  this  divine 
life,  nor  in  a  divine  leading  of  our  race,  if  we  hold  a  mere 
brutal  theory  about  man,  it  were  then  better  altogether  to 
leave  discussing  miracles  and  Gospels,  which  indeed  have 
no  meaning  for,  as  they  can  Btand  in  no  relation  to,  us. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

THE  APOLOGETIC   WORTH  OF  THE  MIRACLES. 

A  MOST  interesting  question  remains ;  What  place 
should  they  who  are  occupied  with  marshalling  and 
presenting  the  evidences  of  Eevelation  ascribe  to  the 
miracles  ?  what  is  the  service  which  they  may  render 
here?  The  circumstances  have  been  already  noticed 
which  hindered  them  from  taking  a  very  prominent  place 
in  the  early  apologies  for  the  faith.^  The  Christian  mira- 
cles had  not  as  yet  sufficiently  extricated  themselves  from 
the  multitude  of  false  miracles,  nor  was  Christ  sufficiently 
discerned  and  distinguished  from  the  various  wonder- 
workers of  his  own  and  of  past  ages ;  and  thus,  even  if 
men  had  admitted  his  miracles  to  be  true  and  godlike, 
they  would  have  been  hardly  nearer  to  the  acknowledging 
of  Christianity  as  the  one  faith,  or  to  the  accepting  of 
Christ  as  '  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life.' 

A  far  more  prominent  position  has  been  assigned  them 
in  later  times,  especially  during  the  last  two  centuries ; 
and  the  tone  and  temper  of  modern  theology  abundantly 
explains  the  greater,  sometimes,  I  believe,  the  undue, 
because  the  exclusive,  prominence,  which  in  this  period 

^  Thus,  in  the  Apologies  of  Justin  Martyr,  thoy  are  scarcely  made  use 
of  at  all.  It  is  otherwise  indeed  with  Arnobius,  who  {Adv.  Gen.  i.  42) 
lays  much  stress  on  them.  Speaking  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  and 
of  Christ's  mission,  he  says,  Nulla  major  est  comprobatio  quam  gestarum 
ab  eo  fides  rerum,  quam  virtutum, — and  then  appeals  through  ten  elo- 
quent chapters  to  his  miracles. 


APOLOGETIC  WORTH  OF  THE  MIRACLES.      95 

tliey  have  assumed.  The  apologetic  literature  of  this  time 
partook,  as  was  inevitable,  in  the  general  dei^ression  of 
all  its  theology.  No  one,  I  think,  vyould  now  be  satisfied 
with  the  general  tone  and  spirit  in  which  the  defences  of 
the  faith,  written  during  the  last  two  centuries,  and  begin- 
ning with  the  memorable  work  of  Grotius,^  are  composed. 
Much  as  this  book  and  others  of  the  same  character  con- 
tain of  admirable,  yet  in  well  nigh  all  that  great  truth  of 
the  Italian  poet  seems  to  have  been  forgotten, 

'  They  struggle  vainly  to  preserve  a  part, 
"Who  have  not  courage  to  contend  for  all.' 

These  apologists  seem  very  often  to  have  thought  that 
Deism  would  best  be  resisted  by  reducing  Christianity  to 
a  sort  of  revealed  Deism.  As  men  that  had  renounced 
the  hope  of  defending  all,  their  whole  endeavour  was  to 
save  something;  and  when  their  pursuers  pressed  them 
hard,  they  were  willing  to  delay  the  pursuit  by  casting  to 
these  much  that  should  have  been  far  dearer  to  them  than 
to  be  sacrificed  thus.  They  have  been  well  compared  to 
men,  who  should  cry  '  Thieves  and  robbers  ! '  and  were  yet 
themselves  all  the  while  throwing  out  of  the  windows  the 
most  precious  things  of  the  house.  And  thus  it  some- 
times happened  that  the  good  cause  suffered  quite  as  much 
from  its  defenders  as  its  assailants  :  for  that  enemies  should 
be  fierce  and  bitter,  this  was  only  to  be  looked  for ;  but 
that  friends,  those  in  whose  keeping  was  the  citadel,  should 
be  timid  and  half-hearted  and  ready  for  a  compromise,  if 
not  for  a  surrender,  was  indeed  an  augury  of  ill.  Now 
this,  which  caused  so  much  to  be  thrown  greatly  out  of 
sight,  as  generally  the  deeper  mysteries  of  our  faith,  which 
brought  about  a  slight  of  the  inner  arguments  for  the 
truth  of  revelation,  caused  the  argument  from  the  miracles 
to  assume  a  disproi)ortionate  importance.  A  value  too 
exclusive  was  set  on  them ;  they  were  rent  away  from  the 

*  De  Veritate  Hcligionis  Christiana. 


96  THE  APOLOGETIC 

truths  for  which  they  witnessed,  and  which  witnessed 
for  them, — only  too  much  like  seals  torn  ofP  from  the 
document  which  at  once  they  rendered  valid,  and  which 
in  return  gave  importance  to  them.  And  thus,  in  this 
unnatural  isolation,  separated  from  Christ's  person  and 
doctrine,  the  whole  burden  of  proof  was  laid  on  them.  The]} 
were  the  apology  for  Christianity,  the  reason  men  should 
give  for  the  faith  which  was  in  them.^ 

It  is  not  hard  to  see  the  motives  which  led  to  this.  Men 
wanted  an  absolute  demonstration  of  the  Christian  faith, — 
one  which,  objectively,  should  be  equally  good  for  every 
man :  they  desired  to  bring  the  matter  to  the  same  sort  of 
proof  as  exists  for  a  problem  in  mathematics  or  a  propo- 
sition in  logic.  And  consistently  with  this  we  see  the 
whole  argument  cast  exactly  into  the  same  forms  of  defi- 
nitions, postulates,  axioms,  and  propositions.^  Yet  the 
state  of  mind  which  made  men  desire  either  to  find  for 
themselves,  or  to  furnish  for  others,  proofs  of  this  nature, 
was  not  altogether  a  healthy  one.  It  was  plain  that  their 
faith  had  become  very  much  an  external  historic  one,  who 
thus  eagerly  looked  round  for  outward  evidences,  and  found 
a  value  only  in  such ;  instead  of  turning  in  upon  them- 
selves as  well,  for  evidence  that  they  had  'not  followed 
cunningly  devised  fables,'  and  saying. '  We  Inoiv  the  things 
which  we  believe, — they  are  to  us  timer  than  aught  else 
can  be,  for  we  have  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  for  their  truth. 

'  I  include,  in  the  proofs  drawn  from  tlie  miracles,  those  drawn  from 
the  Old-Testament  prophecies, — for  it  was  only  as  miracles  (miracula 
prsescientise,  as  the  others  are  miracula  potentise)  that  these  prophecies 
were  made  to  do  service  and  arrayed  in  the  forefront  of  this  battle ;  as 
by  the  learned  and  acute  Iluet,  in  his  Detnonsfratio  Evanyelica,  in  which 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  altoge- 
ther the  point  round  which  the  whole  argument  turns,  as  he  himself  in 
the  PrefacBy  §  2,  declares. 

^  For  example,  by  Huet  in  his  work  referred  to  above.  He  claims  for 
the  way  of  proof  upon  which  he  is  entering  that  it  is  the  safest,  and  has 
the  precision,  and  carries  the  conviction,  of  a  geometrical  proof  {Prn-fatioj 
§  a) :  Utpote  quae  constet  hoc  genere  demonstrationis,  quod  non  minus 
certum  sit  quam  demonstratio  qujevis  geometrica. 


won  Til  OF  THE  MIRACLES.  ^-j 

We  have  found  these  things  to  be  true,  for  they  have  come 
to  us  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  in  power.'  In 
place  of  such  an  appeal  to  those  mighty  influences  which 
Christ's  words  and  doctrine  exercise  on  every  heart  that 
receives  them,  to  their  transforming,  transfiguring  power, 
to  the  miracles  of  grace  which  are  the  heritage  of  every 
one  who  has  believed  to  salvation,  in  place  of  urging  on 
the  gainsayers  in  the  very  language  of  the  Lord,  '  If  any 
man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether 
it  be  of  God'  (John  vii.  17),  this  all  has  vague  and  my- 
stical (instead  of  being  seen  to  be,  as  it  truly  was,  the  most 
sure  and  certain  of  all)  was  thrqwn  into  the  background. 
Men  were  afraid  to  trust  themselves  and  their  cause  to 
evidences  like  these,  and  would  know  of  no  other  state- 
ment of  the  case  than  this  barren  and  hungry  one : — 
Christianity  is  a  divine  revelation,  and  this  the  miracles 
which  accompanied  its  promulgation  prove. 

What  must  first  be  found  fault  with  here  is  the  wilful 
abandonment  of  such  large  regions  of  proof,  which  the 
Christian  apologist  ought  triumphantly  to  have  occupied 
as  his  proper  domain — the  whole  region,  mainly'  and  chiefly, 
of  the  inner  spiritual  life  ;  the  foregoing  of  any  appeal  to 
the  mysterious  powers  of  regeneration  and  renewal,  which 
are  ever  found  to  follow  upon  a  true  affiance  on  Him  who 
is  the  Giver  of  this  faith,  and  who  has  pledged  Himself  to 
these  very  results  in  those  who  rightly  receive  it. 

To  these  proofs  he  might  at  least  have  ventured  an 
appeal,  when  seeking  not  to  convince  an  unbeliever,  but, 
as  would  be  often  his  aim,  to  cany  one  that  already  be- 
lieved round  the  whole  circle  of  the  defences  of  his  position, 
to  make  him  aware  of  the  relative  strength  of  each,  to 
give  him  a  scientific  insight  into  the  grounds  on  which  his 
faith  rested.  Here,  at  any  rate,  the  aj^peal  to  what  he 
had  himself  knoAvn  and  tasted  of  the  powers  of  the  world 
to  come,  might  well  have  found  room.     For,  to  use  the 


98  THE  APOLOGETIC 

words  of  Coleridge/  '  Is  not  a  true,  efficient  conviction  of 
a  moral  truth,  is  not  the  creating  of  a  new  heart,  wliicb. 
collects  tlie  energies  of  a  man's  whole  being  in  the  focus 
of  the  conscience,  the  one  essential  miracle,  the  same  and 
of  the  same  evidence  to  the  ignorant  and  to  the  learned, 
which  no  superior  skill  can  counterfeit,  human  or  demo- 
niacal ;  is  it  not  emphatically  that  leading  of  the  Father, 
without  which  no  man  can  come  to  Christ ;  is  it  not  that 
implication  of  doctrine  in  the  miracle,  and  of  miracle  in 
the  doctrine,  which  is  the  bridge  of  communication  be- 
tween the  senses  and  the  soul ; — that  predisposing  warmth 
which  renders  the  understanding  susceptible  of  the  sj)ecific 
impressions  from  the  history,  and  from  all  other  outward 
seals  of  testimony  ? '  And  even  were  the  argument  with 
one  who  had  never  submitted  himself  to  these  blessed 
powers,  and  to  whose  experience  therefore  no  like  appeal 
could  be  made,  yet  even  for  him  there  is  the  outward  utter- 
ance of  this  inward  truth,  in  that  which  he  could  not  deny, 
save  as  he  denied  or  was  ignorant  of  everything,  which 
would  make  him  one  to  be  argued  with  at  all, — the  stand- 
ing miracle,  I  mean,  of  a  Christendom  '  commensurate  and 
almost  synonymous  with  the  civilized  world,' — the  mighty 
changes  which  this  religion  of  Christ  has  wrought  in  the 
earth, — the  divine  fruits  which  it  everywhere  has  borne, — 
the  new  creation  which  it  has  everywhere  brought  about, — 
the  way  in  which  it  has  taken  its  place  in  the  world,  not 
as  a  forcible  intruder,  but  finding  all  that  world's  preestab- 
lished  harmonies  ready  to  greet  and  welcome  it,  to  give  it 
play  and  room, — philosophy,  and  art,  and  science  practi 
cally  confessing  that  only  under  it  could  they  attain  their 
highest  perfection,  that  in  something  they  had  all  been 
dwarfed  and  stunted  and  incomplete  till  it  came.  Little 
as  it  wears  of  the  glory  which  it  ought,  yet  it  wears  enough 
to  proclaim  that  its  origin  was  more  than  mundane.  Surely 
from  a  Clmstendom,  even  such  as  it  shows  itself  now,  it  is 
^   The  Friend,  vol,  iii.  Essay  ii. 


WOP.  Til  OF  THE  MIRACLES.  99 

fair  to  argue  back  to  a  Christ  sucli  as  tlie  Cliurcli  receives 
as  tlie  only  adequate  cause.  It  is  an  oak  wliicli  from  no 
other  acorn  could  have  unfolded  itself  into  so  tall  and 
stately  a  tree. 

It  is  true  that  in  this  there  is  an  abandoning*  of  the  at- 
tempt to  put  the  proof  of  Christianity  into  the  same  form 
as  that  of  a  proposition  in  an  exact  science.  There  is  no 
more  the  claim  made  of  giving  it  that  kind  of  certainty. 
But  this,  which  may  seem  at  first  sight  a  loss,  is  indeed  a 
gain ;  for  the  argument  for  all  which  as  Christians  we  be- 
lieve, is  in  very  truth  not  logical  and  single,  but  moral  and 
cumulative ;  and  the  attempt  to  substitute  a  formal  proof, 
where  the  deepest  necessities  of  the  soul  demand  a  moral, 
is  one  of  the  most  grievous  shocks  which  the  moral  sense 
can  receive,  as  it  is  also  a  most  fniitful  source  of  unbelief. 
Few  in  whose  hands  books  of  Evidences  constructed  on 
this  scheme  have  fallen,  but  must  painfully  remember  the 
shock  which  they  suffered  from  their  perusal, — how  it  took 
them,  it  may  be,  some  time  to  recover  the  healthy  tone  of 
their  minds,  and  confidence  of  their  faith ;  and  how,  only 
by  falling  back  upon  what  they  themselves  had  felt  and 
known  of  the  living  power  of  Christ's  words  and  doctrine 
in  their  own  hearts,  could  they  deliver  themselves  from 
the  injurious  influences,  the  seeds  of  doubt  and  misgiving, 
which  these  books  had  now,  for  the  first  time  perhaps,  sown 
in  their  minds.  They  must  remember  how  they  asked 
themselves,  in  deep  inner  trouble  of  soul :  '  Are  these  in- 
deed the  grounds,  and  the  only  grounds,  upon  which  the 
deep  foundations  of  my  spiritual  life  repose?  is  this  all 
that  I  have  to  answer?  are  these,  and  no  more,  the  reasons 
of  the  faith  that  is  in  me  ? '  And  then,  if  at  any  moment 
there  arose  a  suspicion  that  some  link  in  this  chain  of  out- 
ward proof  was  wanting,  or  was  too  weak  to  bear  all  the 
weight  which  was  laid  upon  it, — and  men  will  be  con- 
tinually tempted  to  try  the  strength  of  that  to  which  they 
have  trusted  all, — there  was  nothing  to  faU  back  upon,  with 


100  THE  APOLOGETIC 

•whicli  to  scatter  and  put  to  fliglit  suspicions  and  misgivings 
sucli  as  these.  And  that  such  should  arise,  at  least  in 
many  minds,  is  inevitable ;  for  how  many  points,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  there  at  which  a  suspicion  may  intrude.  Is 
a  miracle  possible?  Is  a  miracle  provable?  Were  the 
witnesses  of  these  miracles  competent  ?  Did  they  not  too 
lightly  admit  a  supernatural  cause,  when  there  were  ade- 
quate natural  ones  which  they  failed  to  note  ?  These  works 
may  have  been  good  for  the  eye-witnesses,  but  what  are 
they  for  me  ?  Does  a  miracle,  admitting  it  to  be  a  real 
one,  authenticate  the  teaching  of  him  who  has  wrought  it? 
And  these  doubts  and  questionings  might  be  multiplied 
without  number.  Happy  is  the  man,  and  he  only  is  happy, 
who,  if  the  outworks  of  his  faith  are  at  any  time  thus 
assailed,  can  betake  himself  to  an  impregnable  inner  cita- 
del, from  whence  in  due  time  to  issue  forth  and  repossess 
even  those  exterior  defences,  who  can  fall  back  on  those 
inner  grounds  of  belief,  in  which  there  can  be  no  mistake, 
the  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  above  and  better 
than  all.' 

And  as  it  is  thus  with  him,  who  entirely  desiring  to  be- 
lieve, is  only  unwillingly  disturbed  with  doubts  and  sugges- 
tions, which  he  would  give  worlds  to  be  rid  of  for  ever,  so 
not  less  the  expectation  that  by  arguments  thrown  into 
strict  syllogistic  forms  there  is  any  compelling  to  the  faith 
one  who  does  not  wish  to  believe,  is  absurd,  and  an  expec- 
tation which  all  experience  contradicts.  All  that  he  is, 
and  all  that  he  is  determined  to  be,  has  pledged  him  to  an 
opposite  conclusion.  Rather  than  believe  that  a  miracle 
has  taken  place,  a  miracle  from  the  upper  world,  and  con- 
nected with  precepts  of  holiness,  to  which  precepts  he  is 
resolved  to  yield  no  obedience,  he  will  take  refuge  in  any 
the  most  monstrous  supposition  of  fraud,  or  ignorance,  or 
folly,  or  collusion.     If  no  such  solution  presents  itself,  he 

^  See  the  admirable  words  of  Calvin,  Instit.  i.  7,  §§  4,  5,  on  the  Holy 
Scripture  iva  ultimately  uvroTrtaToc. 


WORTH  OF  THE  MIRACLES.  lOI 

will  wait  for  sucli,  rather  than  accept  the  miracle,  with  the 
hated  adjunct  of  the  truth  which  it  confirms.  In  what 
different  ways  the  same  miracle  of  Christ  wrought  upon 
different  spectators !  He  raised  a  man  from  the  dead; 
here  was  the  same  outward  fact  for  all ;  but  how  diverse 
the  effects  ! — some  believed,  and  some  went  and  told  the 
Pharisees  (John  xi.  45,  46).  Heavenly  voices  were  heard. 
— and  some  said  it  thundered,  so  dull  and  inarticulate 
were  those  sounds  to  them,  while  others  knew  that  they 
were  voices  wherein  was  the  witness  of  the  Father  to  his 
own  Son  (John  xii.  28-30). 

Are  then,  it  may  be  asked,  the  miracles  to  occupy  no 
place  at  all  in  the  array  of  proofs  for  the  certainty  of  the 
things  which  we  have  believed  ?  So  far  from  this,  a  most 
important  place.  Our  loss  would  be  irreparable,  if  they 
did  not  appear  in  sacred  history,  if  we  could  not  point  to 
them  there.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  their  absence 
would  be  fatal.  There  are  indeed  two  miracles,  those  of 
the  Conception  and  of  the  Eesurrection,  round  which  the 
whole  scheme  of  redemption  revolves,  and  without  which 
it  would  cease  to  be  such  at  all.  But  we  are  speaking 
here  not  of  miracles  whereof  Christ  was  the  subject,  but 
of  those  which  He  wrought ;  and  of  them  too  we  affirm  that 
they  belong  to  the  very  idea  of  a  Redeemer,  which  would 
remain  altogether  incomplete  without  them.  They  are 
not,  as  Lessing  declared,  a  part  of  the  scaffolding  of 
revelation,  which  as  such  yielded  a  temporary  service ; 
but  which,  now  that  the  house  is  finished  and  stands 
without  them,  retain  no  further  significance ;  and  cannot 
be  considered  binding  on  any  man's  faith.  They  are 
rather  a  constitutive  element  of  the  revelation  of  God 
in  Christ.  "We  coxdd  not  conceive  of  Him  as  not  doing 
such  works ;  and  those  to  whom  we  presented  Him  as 
Lord  and  Saviour  might  very  well  answer,  '  Strange,  that 
one  should  come  to  deliver  men  from  the  bondage  of  nature 


102  THE  APOLOGETIC 

wliicli  was  cruslimg  them,  and  yet  Himself  have  been 
subject  to  its  heaviest  laws, — Himself  wonderful,  and  yet 
his  appearance  accompanied  by  no  analogous  wonders  in 
nature, — claiming  to  be  the  Life,  and  yet  Himself  helpless 
in  the  encounter  with  death ;  however  much  He  promised 
in  word,  never  realizing  any  part  of  his  promises  in  deed ; 
giving  nothing  in  hand,  no  first-fruits  of  power,  no  pledges 
of  greater  things  to  come.'  They  would  have  a  right  to 
ask,  '  Why  did  He  give  no  signs  that  He  came  to  connect 
the  visible  with  the  invisible  world  ?  why  did  He  nothing 
to  break  the  yoke  of  custom  and  experience,  nothing  to 
show  men  that  the  constitution  which  He  pretended  to 
reveal  has  a  true  foundation  ?  '  ^  And  who  would  not  feel 
that  they  had  reason  in  this,  that  a  Saviour  who  •'o  bore 
Himself  during  his  earthly  life,  and  his  actual  daily  en- 
counter with  evil,  would  bring  into  question,  nay,  would 
forfeit  his  right  to  this  name  ?  that  He  must  needs  show 
Himself,  if  He  were  to  meet  the  wants  of  men,  mighty  not 
only  in  word  but  in  work  ?  claiming  more  than  a  man's 
authority  that  He  should  have  displayed  more  than  a  man's 
power  ?  * 

When  we  object  to  the  use  often  made  of  these  works, 


>  Maurice,  The  Kingdom  of  Christ,  vol.  ii.  p.  264..  Compare  Delitzsch 
(Apolof/etik,  1869,  p.  9) :  Die  Erlosung  liort  auf  zu  sein  was  sie  biblisclieni 
I3egriffe  nach  ist,  wenn  sie  nicht,  sowobl  objectiv  als  aneignungsweise, 
sich  als  iibernatiirllcbe  scbopferiscbe  Setzung  eines  neuen  Anfangs  iuner- 
halb  der  alten  Welt  der  Siinde  und  des  Todes,  also  als  wunderbare  Durcb- 
brecbung  der  natiirlicben  Eutwickeluug,  erweist.  Niramt  man  also 
das  Wunder  aus  dem  Cbristbentbume  biuweg,  so  fallt  das  ganze  Gebaude 
zusammen,  und  es  bleibt  nicbts  iibrig  als  eine  durcb  Sage,  Mytbus  und 
dogmatiscbe  Ueberspannung  entstellte  und,  wenn  auf  ibren  wabren  Tbat- 
bestand  zuriickgebracbt,  mit  natiirlicbem  Mitteln  zu  begreifende  cultur- 
gescbicbtlicbe  Erscbeinung  innerbalb  des  mit  der  Grundricbtung  auf  das 
Eeligiose  ausgestatteten  semitiscben  Volkerstammes. 

*  It  was  tbe  weakness  of  Mabomet,  and  it  is  plain  from  many  utter- 
ances of  bis,  tbat  be  constantly  felt  it  as  sucb,  tbat  be  could  sbew  no 
miracles  witb  wbicb  to  attest  his  mission  as  divine.  It  is  true  that  in  a 
measure  be  won  acceptance  for  himself  and  bis  teaching  without  them  ; 
but  be  did  this  by  flinging  tbe  sword,  where  Christ  had  flung  tbe  cross, 
into  tbe  scale. 


WORTH  OF  THE  MIRACLES.  103 

it  is  only  because  tliey  have  been  forcibly  severed  from  the 
whole  complex  of  Christ's  life  and  doctrine,  and  presented 
to  the  contemplation  of  men  apart  from  these ;  it  is  only 
because,  when  on  his  head  are  '  many  crowns  '  (Eev.  xis. 
12),  one  only  has  been  singled  out  in  proof  that  He  is 
Kins:  of  kino-s  and  Lord  of  lords.  The  miracles  have  been 
spoken  of  as  though  they  borrowed  nothing  from  the 
truths  which  they  confirmed,  but  those  truths  everything 
from  the  miracles  by  which  they  were  confirmed ;  when, 
indeed,  the  true  relation  is  one  of  mutual  interdependence, 
the  miracles  proving  the  doctrines,  and  the  doctrines 
approving  the  miracles,^  and  both  held  together  for  us  in 
a  blessed  unity,  in  the  person  of  Him  who  spake  the 
words  and  did  the  works,  and  through  the  impress  of 
highest  holiness  and  of  absolute  truth  and  goodness,  which 
that  person  leaves  stamped  on  our  souls  ; — so  that  it  may 
be  more  truly  said  that  we  believe  the  miracles  for  Christ's 
sake,  than  Christ  for  the  miracles'  sake.^  Neither  when 
we  thus  affirm  that  the  miracles  prove  the  doctrine,  and 
the  doctrine  the  miracles,  are  we  arguing  in  a  circle  : 
rather  we  are  receiving  the  sum  total  of  the  impression 
which  this  divine  revelation  is  intended  to  make  on  us, 
instead  of  taking  an  impression  only  partial  and  one-sided. 

^  See  Pascal,  Pensees,  27,  Sur  les  31iracles. 

2  Augustine  was  indeed  affirming  the  same,  when,  against  the  Dona- 
tists,  and  their  claims  to  be  workers  of  wonders,  he  said  (De  Unit.  Eccles. 
19):  Queecunque  talia  in  Catholica  [Ecclesia]  fiunt,  ideo  sunt  appro- 
banda,  quia  in  Catholica  fiunt;  non  ideo  manifestatur  Catholica,  qma 
hsec  in  ea  fiunt. 


THE   MIRACLES. 


1.  THE  WATER  TURNED  INTO    WINE. 
John  ii.  i-ii. 

*  rriEI8  beginning  of  miracles '  is  as  truly  an  introduction 
to  all  other  miracles  whicli  Christ  did,  as  the  parable 
of  the  Sower  to  all  other  parables  which  he  spoke  (Mark 
iv.  13).  No  other  miracle  has  so  much  of  prophesy  in  it  j 
no  other,  therefore,  would  have  inaugurated  so  fitly  the 
whole  future  work  of  the  Son  of  God.  For  that  work 
might  be  characterized  throughout  as  an  ennobling  of  the 
common,  and  a  transmuting  of  the  mean  ;  a  turning  of  the , 
water  of  earth  into  the  wine  of  heaven.  But  it  will  be 
better  not  to  anticipate  remarks,  which  will  find  their 
fitter  place  when  the  miracle  itself  shall  have  been  con- 
sidered. 

'And  the  third  day  there  was  a  marriage  in  Cana  of 
Galilee ' — on  the  third  day,  no  doubt,  after  that  on  which 
Philip  and  Nathanael,  as  is  mentioned  just  before  (i.  43), 
had  attached  themselves  to  Christ.  He  and  his  newly-won 
disciples,  of  whom  one  was  a  native  of  Cana  (see  xxi..  2), 
would  have  journeyed  without  diflSculty  from  the  banks  of 
Jordan  to  Cana^  in  two  days,  and  might  so  have  been 

^  Among  the  happiest  of  Robinson's  slighter  rectifications  of  the  geo- 
graphy of  Palestine  (Biblical  Researches,  vol.  iii.  pp.  204.-208),  although 
one  which  is  still  by  some  called  in  doubt  (see  the  Diet,  of  the  Bible, 
B.  V,  Cana),  in  his  reinstatement  of  the  true  Cana  in  honours  long  usurped 
bj  another  village.     In  the  neighbourhood  of  Nazareth  are  two  villages, 


io6  THE    WATER    TURNED  INTO    WINE. 

present  at  tlie  '  marriage,''  or  mamage  festival,  upon  tlie 
third  day  after.  '  And  the  mother  of  Jesus  was  there.'  Tlie 
silence  of  Scripture  leaves  hardly  a  doubt  that  Joseph  was 
dead  before  Christ's  open  ministry  began.  He  is  last  ex- 
pressly mentioned  on  occasion  of  the  Lord's  visit  as  a  child 
to  the  Temple  (Luke  ii,  41) ;  -which,  however,  he  must  for 
a  certain  period  have  overlived  (ver.  51).  ^  And  both  Jesus 
was  called  and  his  disciples.'  These,  invited  with  their 
Master,  and,  no  doubt,  mainly  to  do  honour  to  their 
Master,  i:r  P.-11  likelihood  are  not  the  Twelve,  but  only  those 
five  whose  calling  has  just  before  been  recorded,  Andrew 
and  Peter,  Philip  and  Nathanael  (Bartholomew  ?) ,  and  the 
fifth,  probably  the  Evangelist  himself;  who  will  thus  have 
been   an   eye-witness  of  the  miracle  which  he  relates.^ 

one  Kefr  Kemia,  about  an  hour  and  a  half  N.E.  from  Nazareth ;  the 
other,  Kana  el-Jelil,  about  three  hours'  distance,  and  nearly  due  north. 
The  former  is  now  always  shown  to  travellers  as  the  Cana  of  our  history, 
though  the  name  can  only  with  difficulty  be  twisted  to  the  same,  the 
'Kefr'  having  first  to  be  dropped  altogether,  and  in  Kenna,  the  first 
radical  changed,  and  the  second  left  out;  while  *  Kana  el-Jelil'  is  word 
for  word  the  '  Cana  of  Galilee '  of  Scripture,  -which  exactly  so  stands  in 
the  Arabic  version  of  the  New  Testament.  The  mistake,  as  he  shoAvs, 
is  entirely  modern,  only  since  the  sixteenth  century  Kefr  Kenna  having 
thus  borne  away  the  honours  due  rightly  to  Ktina  el-Jelil.  Till  then,  as 
a  long  line  of  earlier  travellers  and  topographers  attest,  the  latter  was 
ever  considered  as  the  scene  of  this  miracle.  It  may  have  helped  to  win 
for  the  mistake  an  easier  acceptance,  that  it  was  manifestly  for  the 
interest  of  guides  and  travellers  who  would  spare  themselves  fiitigue  and 
distance,  to  accept  the  other  in  its  room,  it  lying  directly  on  one  of  the 
routes  between  Nazareth  and  Tiberias,  and  being  far  more  accessible 
than  the  true.  The  Cana  of  the  New  Testament  does  not  occur  in  the 
Old,  but  is  mentioned  twice  by  Josephus  (Jit.  §§  16,  64.;  Hell.  Jud.  i.  17, 
5).  The  Old  Testament  has  only  Kanah  in  Asher  (Josh.  xix.  28),  S.E. 
of  Tyre. 

^  A  late  tradition  adopted  by  the  Mahometans  (D'llerbelot,  Biblioth. 
Orient,  s.  v.  Johannes),  makes  St.  John  himself  the  bridegroom  at  this 
marriage  ;  who,  beholding  the  miracle  which  Jesus  wrought,  forsook  the 
bride,  and  followed  Him.  Thus  the  Prologtie  to  St.  John,  attributed  to 
Jerome  (Joannem  nubere  volentem  a  nuptiis  per  Dominum  fuisse  voca- 
tum),  but  with  no  closer  reference  to  this  miracle.  According  to  Nice- 
phorus  it  was  not  St.  John,  but  Simon  the  Canaauite,  who  on  this  hint 
followed  Jesus;  but  V.araviTj}(;  attached  to  his  name  (Matt.  x.  4),  and 
probably  the  only  foundation  for  this  assumption,  does  not  mean  'of 
Cana ; '  any  more  than  it  means  '  of  Canaan ; '  which  our  Translators 


THE    WATER    TURNED  INTO    WINE.  107 

Ilim,  as  was  seen  long  ago,  we  may  pretty  confidently 
recognize  in  the  second  but  unnamed  disciple,  whom  the 
Baptist  detached  from  himself,  that  he  might  attach  him 
to  the  Lord  (John  i.  35,  40).  It  is  in  St.  John's  favourite 
manner  to  preserve  an  incognito  of  this  kind  (cf.  xiii.  23 ; 
xviii.  15;  xix.  26,  35),  thus  seeking  to  draw  aAvay  all 
attention  from  himself  the  teller,  and  fix  it  on  the  events 
which  he  is  telling. 

None  need  wonder  to  find  the  Lord  of  life  at  this  festival ; 
for  He  came  to  sanctify  all  life, — to  consecrate  its  times  of 
joy,  as  its  times  of  sorrow ;  the  former,  as  all  experience 
teaches,  needing  above  all  such  a  consecration  as  only  his 
jDresence,  bodily  or  spiritual,  can  give.  He  was  there, 
and  by  his  presence  there  stnick  the  key-note  to  the  whole 
tenor  of  his  future  ministry.  He  should  not  be  as  another 
Baptist,  a  wilderness  preacher,  withdrawing  himself  from 
the  common  paths  of  men.  His  should  be  at  once  a  harder 
and  a  higher  task,  to  mingle  with  and  purify  the  daily  life 
of  men,  to  bring  out  the  glory  which  was  everywhere 
hidden  there.*  How  precious  is  his  witness  here  against 
an  indolent  and  cowardly  readiness  to  give  up  to  the 
world,  or  to  the  devil,  aught  which,  in  itself  innocent,  is 


writing  'the  Cana«nite/  as  though  Kara}nrrir-=^Xuvuvcuoc,  must  have 
assumed.  It  is  rather  a  term  equivalent  to  ?/jXwr/;(.-,  the  title  given  him 
elsewhere  (Luke  vi.  15;  Acts  i.  13);  see,  however,  on  this  point  Greswell 
(Disseti.  vol.  ii.  p.  128  sqq.).  Once  a  '  zealot,'  his  zeal  for  freedom,  which 
had  then  displayed  itself  in  stormy  outbreaks  of  the  natural  man,  now 
found  its  satisfaction  in  Ilim  who  came  to  make  free  indeed. 

'  Augustine,  or  another  under  his  name  (^Serm.  xcii.  ApijencUx) : 
Nee  dedignatus  est  conversationem  hominum,  qui  usum  carnis  exce- 
perat.  Nee  secularia  instituta  contempsit,  qui  ad  hrec  venerat  corrigenda. 
Interfuit  nuptiis,  ut  concordiaj  jura  firmaret.  Tertullian,  in  his  reckless 
method  of  snatching  at  any  argument,  finds  rather  a  slighting  of  marriage 
than  an  honouring  it  in  the  fact  that  Christ,  who  was  present  at  so  many 
festivals,  was  yet  present  only  at  one  marriage.  Or  this  at  least  he  will  find, 
that  since  Christ  was  present  but  at  one  marriage,  therefore  monogamy 
is  the  absolute  law  of  the  new  covenant.  His  words  are  characteristic 
(De  3Ionofj.  9):  Ille  vorator  et  potator  homo,  prandiorum  et  crenarum 
cum  publicanis  frequentator,  semel  apud  unas  nuptias  coenat,  multis  utique 
nubentibus.     Totiens  enim  voluit  celebrare  eas,  quotiens  et  esse. 

8 


io8  THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE. 

capable  of  being  drawn  up  into  the  higher  world  of  holi- 
ness, even  as  it  is  in  danger  of  sinking  down  and  coming 
under  the  law  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  world  !  ISTor  is  it 
without  its  significance,  that  this  should  have  been  a 
marriage,  which  He  '  adorned  and  beautified  with  his 
presence  and  first  miracle  that  He  wrought.'  No  human 
relation  is  the  type  of  so  deep  a  spiritual  mystery  (cf.  iii. 
29;  Matt.  ix.  15;  xxii.  1-14;  xxv.  10;  Rev.  xix.  7;  xxi. 
2,  9;  xxii.  17  ;  2  Cor.  xi.  2),  so  worthy  therefore  of  the 
highest  honour.  He  foresaw  too  that,  despite  of  this, 
some  hereafter  should  arise  in  his  Church  who  would 
despise  marriage  (i  Tim.  iv.  3),  or,  if  not  despise,  yet  fail 
to  give  the  Christian  family  all  its  dignity  and  honour.' 
These  should  find  no  countenance  from  him.'^  At  the 
same  time  Bengel  probably  is  right  when  he  urges  that 
such  a  presence  of  his  on  such  an  occasion  would  scarcely 
have  found  place  at  a  later  period  of  his  ministry.  The 
shadows  fell  so  heavily  upon  his  soul,  as  the  unbelief  of 
the  world  fully  revealed  itself  to  Him,  with  his  own  rejec- 
tion and  all  which  would  follow  on  that  rejection,  that  the 
mii'tli  of  a  marriage  festival,  holy  as  it  was  or  might  be, 
would  have  too  ill  consented  with  the  intense  sadness  of 
that  time.^ 

^  Epiphanius  (Jleeres.  Ixvii.);  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xix.): 
Quod  Dominus  iuvitatus  venerit  ad  nuptias,  etiam  excepta  mystica  sigui- 
ficatione,  contirmare  voluit  quod  ipse  fecit. 

*  What  a  contrast  does  his  presence  here  offer  to  the  manner  in  whicli 
even  a  St.  Cyprian  yields  up  these  very  marriage  festivals  as  occasions 
where  purity  must  suffer;  so  that  his  counsel  is,  not  to  dispute  them  with 
the  world,  to  vindicate  them  anew  for  holiness  and  for  God^  but  only  to 
avoid  them  altogether  {De  Hub.  Virg.  3) :  Et  quoniam  continentio9 
bouuni  quferimus,  perniciosa  quteque  et  infesta  vitemus.  Nee  ilia  prre- 
tereo  quse  dum  negligentia  in  usuni  veniunt,  contra  pudicos  et  sobrios 
mures  licentiaui  sibi  de  usurpatione  fecerunt.  Quasdam  non  pudet 
nubentibus  interesse.  Niiptiaruui  festa  improba  et  convivia  lasciva 
vitentur,  quorum  periculosa  contagio  est.  Compare  the  picture  which 
Chrysostom  gives  of  marriage  festivals  in  his  time  (torn.  iii.  p.  195,  Bened. 
ed.), — melancholy  witnesses,  yet  not,  as  some  would  persuade  us,  of  a 
Church  entangled  anew  in  heathen  defilements,  but  of  one  which  had  not 
as  yet  leavened  an  essentially  heathen,  though  nominally  Christian, 
society,  through  and  through  with  its  own  life  and  power. 

^  Magna   fiicilitas   Domini.      Nuptiis   interest  primo   tempore,    dum 


THE    WATER    TURXED   INTO    WINE.  loq 

^  And  lolien  they  wanted  wine,  the  mother  of  Jesus  saith 
unto  Him,  They  have  no  wine.''  His  and  his  disciples'  pre- 
sence, unlooked-for  perhaps,  as  of  those  just  arrived  from 
a  journey,  may  have  increased  beyond  expectation  the 
number  of  tbe  guests  ;  and  so  the  provision  made  for  their 
entertainment  have  proved  insufficient.  The  Mother  of 
the  Lord,  from  one  reason  or  another,  did  not  account  it 
unseemly  to  interfere  with,  and  in  some  sort  to  guide,  the 
festal  arrangements.'  Perhaps  she  was  near  of  kin  to  the 
bridegroom  or  the  bride  ;  at  all  events  she  was  distressed 
at  the  embarrassments  of  that  humble  houseJiold,  and 
would  willmgly  have  removed  them.  Yet  what  exactly 
she  expected  from  her  divine  Son,  when  she  thus  brought 
their  need  to  Him,  is  hard  to  determine.  She  could  not, 
from  anterior  displays  of  his  power  and  grace  (for  see  ver. 
ii),  have  now  been  emboldened  to  look  for  further  mani- 
festations of  the  same.  Some  indeed  take  not  so  abso- 
lutely the  denial  of  all  miracles  preceding,  but  with  this 
limitation  understood  : — this  was  the  first  of  his  miracles 
wherein  He  showed  forth  hi^  ^ovj;  other  such  works  He 
may  have  performed  already  in  the  inner  circle  of  his 
family,  and  thus  have  led  them  to  expect  more  open 
displays  of  his  grace  and  power.  But,  without  evading 
thus  the  plain  declaration  of  St.  John,  we  may  well 
understand  how  she,  who  had  kept  and  pondered  in  her 
heart  all  the  tokens  and  prophetic  intimations  of  the 
coming  glory  of  her  Son  (Luke  ii.  ig,  51),  should  believe 
that  in  Him  powers  were  latent  which,  however  He  had 
restrained  them  until  now,  He  could  and  would  put  forth, 
whenever  a  fit  time  had  arrived.'^     This  is  more  probable 

discipulos  allicit,  per  severiores  iude  vias  progressurus  ad  crucem,  ad 
gloriam. 

'  Lightfoot  (^Harmony,  in  loc. ;  cf.  Greswell,  Dissert,  vol.  ii.  p.  120) 
supposes  it  a  marriage  in  the  house  of  Mary  (John  xix.  25),  wife  of 
Cleophas. 

^  So  Theophylact,  Euthymius,  and  Xeander,  Leben  Jesiiy^.  -^-o)  and 
see  in  this  sense  one  good  observation  by  Godet,  Conim.  sur  FEvang,  de 
St.  Jean,  p.  348. 


no  THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE. 

than  to  suppose  that  she  had  no  definite  purpose  in  these 
words ;  but  only  turned  to  Him  now,  as  having  ever  found 
Him  a  wise  counsellor  in  least  things  as  in  greatest.* 
Bengel's  suggestion  is  curious,  that  it  was  a  hint  to  Him 
that  they  should  leave,  and  thus  by  their  example  break  up 
the  assembl}',  before  the  necessities  of  their  hosts  became 
manifest;^  and  Calvin's  is  more  curious  still.^ 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  motive  of  her  inter- 
ference, it  promises  at  first  no  good  result.  *  Jesus  saith 
unto  her,  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ?  Mine  hour  is 
not  yet  come.'  Eoman  Catholic  expositors  have  been  very 
anxious  to  rid  this  answer  of  every  shadow  of  rebuke  or 
blame.  Entire  treatises  have  been  written  with  this  single 
purpose.  Now  it  is  quite  true  that  in  the  address  '  Woman' 
there  is  nothing  of  severity  or  harshness,  though  there 
may  be  the  sound  of  such  to  an  English  ear.  In  his 
tenderest  words  to  his  mother  from  the  cross.  He  employs 
the  same  address,  *  Woman,  behold  thy  son '  (John  xix.  26). 
Indeed  the  compellation  cannot  fail  to  have  something 
solemn  in  it,  wherever  the  dignity  of  woman  is  felt. 
But  it  is  otherwise  with  the  words  following,  '  What  have 
T  to  do  with  thee?'*     All  expositors  of  the  early  Chui-ch^ 

'  So  Cocceius :  Verba  nihil  aliud  portendunt  quara  JNIariam  tanquam 
Bolicitam  et  parentem  operuisse  ipsi  defectum  vini,  ex  coudoleulia 
nimirum. 

^  Velim  discedas,  ut  ceteri  item  discedant,  antequam  penuria  patefiat. 

'  Ut  pia  aliqua  exhortations  convivis  ttedium  eximeret,  ac  simul 
leTaret  pudorem  sponsi. 

*  Ti  ij-ii'l  Ka'i  aoi ;  cf.  Judg.  xi.  12 ;  i  Kin.  xvii.  18  ;  2  Kin.  iii.  13,  where 
the  same  phrase  is  used ;  it  is  elliptic,  and  the  word  koivov  may  be  sup- 
plied; cf.  Josh.  xxii.  24.;  2  Sam.  xvi.  10;  JNIatt.  viii.  29;  Mark  i.  24; 
Luke  viij.  28.  It  is  only  out  of  an  entire  ignorance  of  the  idiom  that 
some  understand  the  words,  '  What  is  that  to  thee  and  Me  ?  What  con- 
oerns  it  us  twain  that  there  is  no  wine  ? ' 

*  Two  examples  for  many.  Irenseus  (iii.  16):  Properante  Maiiil  ad 
adroirabile  vini  signum,  et  ante  tempus  volente  participare  compendii 
pocalo,  Dominus  repellens  ejus  intempestivam  festinationem,  dixit,  Quid 
mihi  et  tibi  est,  mulier  ?  nondum  venit  hora  mea,  expectans  eam  hovam 
q[ufe  est  a  Patra  praecognita.  He  means  by  the  compendii  poculum, 
tlie  cup  of  wine  not  resulting  from  tlie  slower  processes  of  nature,  but 
made  per  saltum,  at  a  single  intervention  of  divine  power,  therefore  com- 


THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE.  in 

have  fomid  in  tliem  more  or  less  of  reproof  and  repulse ; 
the  Roman  Catholics  themselves  admit  the  appearance  of 
such ;  only  they  deny  the  reality.  He  so  replied,  they  say, 
to  teach  us,  not  her,  that  higher  respects  than  those  of  flesh 
and  blood  moved  Him  to  the  selecting  of  that  occasion 
for  the  first  putting  forth  of  his  divine  power. ^  Most 
certainly  it  was  to  teach  this  ;  but  to  teach  it  first  to  her, 
who  from  her  wondrous  position  as  the  '  blessed  among 
women '  was,  more  than  any  other,  in  danger  of  forgetting 
it ;  and  in  her  to  teach  it  to  all.  *  She  had  not  yet,'  says 
Chrysostom,  '  that  opinion  of  Him,  which  she  ought,  but 
because  she  bare  Him,  comited  that,  after  the  manner  of 
other  mothers,  she  might  in  all  things  command  Him, 
whom  it  more  became  her  to  reverence  and  worship  as  her 
Lord.' 2  The  true  parallel  to  this  passage,  and  that  throw- 
ing most  light  on  it,  is  Matt.  xii.  46-50. 

And  yet,  doubtless,  any  severity  which  this  answer  may 
wear  in  the  reading,  was  mitigated  by  the  manner  of  its 
speaking  ;  allowing,  as  this  plainly  must  have  done,  a  near 
compliance  with  her  request  to  look  through  the  apparent 
refusal.  For  when  she  '  saith  unto  the  servants.  Whatsoever 
He  saith  unto  you,  do  it,'^  it  is  evident  she  read,  and,  as  the 
sequel  shows,  rightly  read,  a  Yes  latent  in  his  apparent  No. 
Luther  bids  us  here  to  imitate  her  faith,  who,  nothing 
daunted  by  the  semblance  of  a  refusal,  reads  between  the 

peudiously.  Cf.  iii.  1 1 ;  and  Chrysostom  ascribes  lier  request  to  vanity 
(Horn.  xxi.  in  Joh.):  'Kjioi'Xtro  .  .  .  iavriiv  Xajnrportpav  Trotijoai  via  tov 
Uaicoc,  therefore  was  it  that  Christ  afn^porepov  dirtKpivaro. 

^  Maldonatus:  Simulavit  se  matrem  reprehendere,  cum  minime 
reprehenderet,  ut  ostenderet  se  non  huniano,  non  sanguinis  respectu,  sed 
sola  caritate,  et  ut  sese,  quis  sit,  declaret,  miraculum  facere.  St.  Bernard, 
had  gone  before  him  in  this  explanation :  it  was,  he  says,  for  our  sakes 
Christ  so  answered,  ut  conversos  ad  Dominum  jam  non  sollicitet  carna- 
liuni  cura  pareutum,  et  necessitudines  illoe  non  impediant  exercitium 
spirituale. 

*  Horn.  xxi.  in  Joh. 

'  The  words  are  curiously  like  those  of  Pharoah,  when  he  designates 
Joseph  to  the  Egyptians  as  the  one  who  should  supply  all  their  needs 
{Gen.  xli.  55);  the  occasions  too  are  not  wholly  dissimilar.  Was  the 
resemblance  intentional  ? 


112  THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE. 

lines  of  tliis  refusal  a  better  answer  to  lier  prayer  ;  is  con- 
fident that  even  the  infirmity  wliich  clave  to  it  sliall  not 
defeat  it  altogether ;  is  so  confident  of  this,  as  to  indicate 
not  obscurely  the  very  manner  of  its  granting.  And  yet 
this  confidence  of  hers  in  his  new  interposition,  following  so 
close  as  it  does  on  that  announcement  of  his,  '  Mine  hour 
is  not  yet  come,'  is  not  without  its  difficulty.  If  they  were 
not  interpreted  by  the  event,  these  words  might  seem  to 
defer  not  for  some  briefest  interval  the  manifestation  of 
his  glory,  but  to  postpone  it  altogether  to  some  remote 
period  of  his  ministry.  Indeed,  his  *  Jiour  '  is  generally, 
most  of  all  in  the  language  of  St.  John,  the  hour  of  his 
passion,  or  of  his  departure  from  the  world  (vii.  30 ;  viii. 
20;  xii.  23,  27;  xiii.  i;  xvii.  i').  Here,  however,  and 
perhaps  on  one  other  occasion  (vii.  6),  it  indicates  a  time 
close  at  hand.  So  she  rightly  understood  it.  Not  till  the 
wine  was  wholly  exhausted  would  his  '  Jiour '  have  arrived. 
When  all  other  help  fails,  then  and  not  till  then  the  '  hour  ' 
of  the  great  Helper  will  have  struck.  Then  will  be  time 
to  act,  when  by  the  entire  failure  of  the  wine,  manifest  to 
all,  the  miracle  shall  be  above  all  suspicion ;  else  in 
Augustine's  words.  He  might  seem  rather  to  mingle  ele- 
ments than  to  change  them.'' 

Very  beautiful  is  the  facility  with  which  our  Lord  yields 
Himself  to  the  supply,  not  of  the  absolute  wants  merely, 
but  of  the  superfluities,  of  others ;  yet  this,  as  I  must  believe, 
not  so  much  for  the  guests'  sake,  as  for  that  of  the  bridal 
pair,  whose  marriage  feast,  by  the  unlooked-for  short- 
coming of  the  wine,  was  in  danger  of  being  exposed  to 


^  It  is  6  Krttpoc  there,  >/  wpn  here. 

'^  So  in  the  Appendix  to  St.  Augustine  {Serm.  xcii.):  Ilac  responsione 
interim  debemus  advertere  quod  de  nuptiali  vino  para  aliqua  adhuc  forte 
resederat.  Ideo  nondum  erat  Domini  plena  hora  virtutum.  ne  miscere 
magis  elementa  quam  mutare  videretur  [ue  aqua  vino  admixta  crederetur: 
Grotius].  Maldonatiis:  Cur  ergo  miraculum  fecit,  si  tempus  uon  venerat? 
Noil  veuerat  cum  mater  petivit ;  venerat  cum  fecit,  modico  licet  inter- 
vallo.     So  Cyril,  Chrysostom,  Theophylact,  Euthymius. 


THE   WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE.  113 

mockery  and  scorn.  •  We  may  contrast  this  his  readiness 
to  aid  otliers,  with  his  stern  refusal  to  minister  by  the 
same  ahnighty  power  to  his  own  extremest  necessities. 
He  who  turned  water  into  wine,  might  have  made  bread 
out  of  stones  (Matt.  iv.  4) ;  ^  but  spreading  a  table  for  others. 
He  is  content  to  hunger  and  to  thirst  Himself. 

The  conditions  under  which  the  miracle  was  accom- 
plished are  all,  as  Cbrysostom  ^  long  ago  observed,  such 
as  exclude  every  suspicion  of  collusion.  ^  And  there  were 
set  there  six  ivaterpots  of  stone,  after  the  manner  of  the  iniri- 
fying  of  the  Jews,  containing  two  or  three  firJcins  apiece. 
Jesus  saith  unto  them,  Fill  the  waterpots  with  water.  And 
they  filled  them,  tip  to  the  hrim.^  They  were  vessels  for 
water,  not  for  wine ;  thus  none  could  insinuate  that  pro- 
bably some  sediment  of  wine  remained  in  them,  which, 
lending  a  flavour  to  water  j)om'ed  on  it,  formed  thus  a 
thinnest  kind  of  wine ;  as  every  suggestion  of  the  same 
kind  is  excluded  by  the  praise  which  the  ruler  of  the 
feast  bestows  upon  the  new  supply  (ver.  10).  The  cir- 
cumstance of  these  vessels  being  at  hand  is  accounted  for. 
They  were  there  by  no  premeditated  plan,  but  in  accord- 
ance with  the  customs  and  traditionary  observances  of  the 
Jews  in  the  matter  of  washing  (Matt.  xv.  2  ;  xxiii.  25  ; 
M&,rk  vii.  2-4  ;  Luke  xi.  38) ;  for  this  seems  more  probable 
than  that  this  ^purifying '  has  reference  to  any  distinctly 
commanded  legal  observances.  The  quantity,  too,  which 
these  vessels  contained,  was  enormous  ;  not  such  as  might 
have  been  brought  in  unobserved,  but  '  two  or  three  firhins 
apiece.'  And  the  vessels  were  empty ;  those  therefore  who 
en  that  bidding  had  filled  them,  as  they  knew,  with  water, 
became  themselves  by  this  act  of  theirs  witnesses  to  the 
reality  of  the  miracle.     But  for  this  it  might  only  have 

^  Hilary  (De  Trin.  iii.  5)  :  Sponsus  tristis  est,  familia  turbatur, 
Bollenmitas  nuptialis  convivii  periclitatur. 

^  Augustine  (Serm.  cxxiii.  2) :  Qui  poterat  talia  facere,  dignatus  est 
mdigere.     Qui  fecit  de  aqua  viuum,  potuit  facere  et  de  lapidibus  panem. 

'  Horn.  xxii.  in  Joh. 


114  THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE. 

appeared,  as  in  fact  it  did  only  appear  to  the  ruler  of  tlie 
feast,  tliat  the  wine  came  from  some  unexpected  quarter ; 
he  *  Icnew  not  wJience  it  was;  hut  the  servants  which  drew  the 
water, ^ ' — not,  that  is,  the  water  now  made  wine,  but  who 
had  drawn  the  simpler  element  on  which  the  Lord  ^ut 
forth  his  transforming  powers, — *  knew.'' 

*  And  He  saith  unto  them,  Draw  out  noiv,  and  hear  unto 
the  governor  of  the  feast  J*  It  has  been  debated  whether 
this  '  governor '  was  himself  one  of  the  guests,  set  either 
by  general  consent  or  by  the  selection  of  the  host  over  the 
banquet;  or  a  chief  attendant,  charged  with  ordering  the 
course  of  the  entertainment,  and  overlooking  the  minis- 
trations of  the  inferior  servants.'  The  analogy  of  Greek  and 
Eoman  usages'  points  him  out  as  himself  a  guest,  invested 
with  this  office  for  the  time ;  aiid  a  passage  in  the  Apo- 
crypha* shows  that  the  custom  of  selecting  such  a  master 
of  the  revels  was  in  use  among  the  Jews.  Indeed  the 
freedom  of  remonstrance  which  he  allows  himself  with 
the  bridegroom  seems  decisive  of  his  position,  that  it  is 
not  that  of  an  underling,  but  an  equal.  It  was  for  him  to 
taste  and  distribute  the  wine ;  to  him,  therefore,  the  Lord 

^  The  Vulgate  rightly  :  Qui  hauserant.  De  Wette :  Welche  das 
Wasser  geschopfet  hatten.     So  the  Ambrosian  Hymn : 

Vel  hydriis  plenis  aqute 
Vino  saporera  infuderia, 
Haiisit  minister  consciiis 
Quod  ipse  non  impleverat. 

^  So  by  Severus  ;  by  Juvencus,  who  calls  him  sumoium  niinistrum  ; 
by  Kuinoel,  and  others. 

^  This  apx""P'K''^i»'Of  will  then  answer  to  the  Greek  tri'/tTrorrtf'ipyj/f,  the 
rex  convivii,  magister  convivii,  modimperator,  or  arbiter  bibendi  (Horace) 
of  the  Romans.  It  was  his  part,  in  the  words  of  Plato,  iraicaywynv 
(TvnTToawv  (Becker,  Charicles,  vol.  i.  p.  465).  He  appears  here  as  the 
TTpoyevfjrric:.  The  word  apxiTfjiKXivot;  is  late,  and  of  rare  occurrence; 
Petronius  has  triclinarches. 

*■  Ecclus.  xxxii.  i,  2 :  'If  thou  be  made  the  master  of  a  feast  (//yoi'- 
nivoc),  lift  not  thyself  up,  but  be  among  them  as  one  of  the  rest;  take 
diligent  care  of  them,  and  so  sit  down.  And  when  thou  hast  done  all 
thy  office,  take  thy  place,  that  thou  mayest  be  merry  with  them,  and 
receive  a  crown  for  thy  well  ordering  of  the  feast.' 


TH?2    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE.  115 

commanded  that  this  should  be  first  brought,  even  in  this 
little  matter  allowing  and  honouring  the  established  order 
and  usage  of  society,  and  giving  to  every  man  his  due. 

*  And  they  hare  it,''  water  now  no  more,  but  wine.  Like 
other  acts  of  creation,  or,  more  strictly,  of  lecomhuj,  this  of 
the  water  becoming  wine,  is  Avithdrawn  from  sight.  That 
which  is  poured  into  the  jars  as  water  is  drawn  out  as 
wine ;  but  the  actual  process  of  the  change  we  toil  in  vain 
to  conceive ;  and  can  only  fall  back  on  the  profound 
maxim :  Subtilitas  naturse  longe  superat  subtilitatem  men- 
tis humanse.  And  yet  in  truth  it  is  in  no  way  stranger, 
save  in  the  rapidity  with  which  it  is  effected,  than  that 
which  is  every  day  going  forward  among  us  ;  but  to  which 
use  and  custom  have  so  dulled  our  eyes,  that  commonly  we 
do  not  marvel  at  it  at  all ;  and,  because  we  can  call  it  by 
its  name,  suppose  that  we  have  discovered  its  secret,  or 
rather  that  there  is  no  secret  in  it  to  discover.  He  who 
each  year  prepares  the  wine  in  the  grape,  causing  it  to 
absorb,  and  swell  with,  the  moisture  of  earth  and  heaven, 
to  transmute  this  into  nobler  juices  of  its  own,  did  now 
concentrate  all  those  slower  processes  into  a  single  mo- 
ment, and  accomplish  in  an  instant  what  usually  He  takes 
many  months  to  accomplish.^  This  analogy  dees  not  help 
us  to  understand  what  the  Lord  at  this  time  did,  but  yet 
brings  before  us  that  in  it  He  was  working  in  the  line  of 
{above,  indeed,  but  not  across,  or  counter  to)  his  more  ordi- 
nary operations,  the  unnoticed  miracles  of  everyday  na- 
ture. That  which  this  had  peculiarly  its  own,  which  took 
it  out  from  the  order  of  nature,  was  the  power  and  will  by 
which  all  the  intervening  steps  of  these  tardier  processes 
were  overleaped,  their  methods  superseded,  and  the  result 
attained  in  an  instant.^ 

^  Voici  le  vin  qui  tombe  du  del,  is  the  not  uncommon  exclamation  of 
llie  French  peasantry,  when  the  rain  is  falling  on  their  vineyards  at  the 
right  season. 

'  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Jolt,  tract,  viii.):  Ipse  enim  fecit  vinum  iilo  die 
in  nuptiis  in  sex  illis  hydriis  quas  iuipleri  aqua  prascepit,  qui  omui  anno 


ii6  THE   WATER   TURXED  INTO    WINE. 

'  When  the  ruler  of  the  feast  had  tasted  the  water  that  was 
made  wine,  and  hnew  not  whence  it  ivas  {but  the  servants 
which  drew  the  water  hiew),  the  ciovernor  of  the  feast  called 
the  hridegroom/ — called,  that  is,  to  liim,^  and  with  some- 
thing of  a  festive  exclamation,  not  unsuitable  to  the  season, 
exclaimed  :  *  Every  man  at  the  beginning  doth  set  forth  good 
wine;  and  u'hen  Tnen  have  well  drunh,  then  that  ivhich  is 
worse  :^  bid  thou  hast  hept  the  good  ivine  until  now.'  Many 
interpreters  have  been  very  anxious  to  rescue  the  word, 
which  we  have  rendered  '  loell  drunlc,'  from  implying  aught 
of  excess  ;  "^  lest  it  might  appear  that  we  had  here  one  of 
those  unseemly  revels  [temulenta  convivia  Cyprian  calls 
them)  which  too  often  disgraced  a  marriage,^ — with  all  the 
difficulties,  of  Christ's  sanctioning  with  his  j)resence  so 
great  an  abuse  of  God's  gifts,  and,  stranger  still,  ministering 
by  his  divine  power  to  a  yet  further  excess.  But  there  is 
no  need  thus  anxiously  to  deal  with  the  word.^  We  may 
be  quite  sure  there  was  no  such  excess  here ;  for  to  this 
the  Lord  would  as  little  have  given  allowance  by  his  pi'e- 

facit  lioc  in  vitibus.  SIcut  enira  quod  miserunt  nilnistri  in  hydrias,  in 
viimm  conversum  est  opere  Domini,  sic  et  quod  nubes  fundunt,  in  vinuui 
convertitur  ejusdem  opere  Domini.  Illud  autem  non  miramur,  quia 
omni  amio  fit :  assiduitate  amisit  admirationem.  And  again  (Strm. 
cxxiii.  3) :  Qupb  aqua  erat,  vinum  factum  viderunt  homines  et  obstupue- 
runt.  Quid  aliud  lit  de  pluvia  per  radicem  vitis  ?  Ipse  ilia  fecit,  ipse 
ista ;  ilia  ut  pascaris,  ista  ut  mireris.  So  also  De  Gen.  ad  Litt.  vi.  1 3. 
Chrysostom  {Horn.  xxii.  in  Joh.) :  ^fi/crrf  i'lTt  avrui;  ianv  o  iv  rale 
n/iTTtXoif  TO  i!C(jop  iJiTcijSdWwt'j  Kal  ruv  vtror  cid  Ttjc  pii^riC  f'C  nirov  TpiTrwi'f 
orrep  iv  T(ij  ilVTiij  ^la  ttoWov  \p6i'i)V  ■ylvirat,  roi'ro  ailf>6ov  iv  Tip  yi^'l' 
(Ipyanarn.     Cf.  Gregory  tbe  Great,  Moral.  \i.  15;  and  Tbeodoret,  Hcer. 

Fah.  Comp.  1.  5,  who  calls  it  aylwpyiiTOv  olror. 

1  Maldouatus :  Non  quod  ad  se  venire  jusserit,  quod  minime  fuisset 
urbanum,  sed  quod  recumbentem  appellans  iuterrogaverit,  quid  optimum 
vinum  in  fineui  reservasset. 

'^  Pliny  (H.  N.  xiv.  14)  denounces  the  meanness  of  some,  qui  convivia 
alia  quam  sibimet  ipsis  ministrant,  f\\\i  jn-ocedentc  mcnsd  subjiciunt. 

^  Cf.  Gen.  xliii.  33,  LXX,  where  the  same  word  occurs. 

*  De  Ilah.  Virg.  3. 

^  Augustine,  indeed,  goes  further  than  any,  for  he  makes  not  merely 
the  guests,  but  the  ruler  of  the  feast  himself  to  have  '  ^ceU  dnink  '  indeed. 
The  Lord  not  merely  made  wine,  but,  he  adds  {De  Gen.  ad  Litt.  vi.  13). 
tale  vinum,  quod  cbrius  etiam  conviva  laudarct. 


THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE.  iij 

oence,  as  He  would  liave  helped  it  forward  by  a  sj)eeial 
wonder- Avork  of  liis  own.  '  The  ruler  of  the  feast '  does  but 
refer  to  a  common  practice,  and  at  the  same  time  notice 
the  motive,  namely,  that  men's  palates  after  a  while  are 
blunted,  and  their  power  of  discerning  between  good  and 
bad  is  diminished  ;  and  thus  an  inferior  wine  passes  with 
them  then,  which  would  not  have  past  current  with  them 
before.  There  is  no  special  reference  to  the  guests  present, 
but  only  to  the  corrupt  customs  and  fashions  too  common 
in  the  world;' — and  none  would  find  one,  who  were  not 
eager  to  mar,  if  by  any  means  they  could,  the  image  of  a 
perfect  Holiness,  which  offends  and  rebukes  them. 

Of  a  piece  with  this  is  their  unworthy  objection,  to  whom 
the  miracle  is  incredible,  seeing  that,  even  if  the  Lord  did 
not  minister  to  an  excess  already  commenced,  still  by  the 
creation  of  '  so  large  and  perilous  a  quantity  of  wine  '  (for 
the  quantity  was  enormous''').  He  would  have  put  temptation 
in  men's  way.  With  the  same  justice  every  good  gift  of 
God  which  is  open  to  any  possible  abuse,  every  plenteous 
return  of  the  field,  every  large  abundance  of  the  vineyard, 
might  be  accused  of  being  a  temptation  put  in  men's  way  ; 
and  so  in  some  sort  it  is  (cf.  Luke  xii.  i6),  a  proving  of 
men's  temperance  and  moderation  in  the  midst  of  abun- 
dance.^   For  man  is  not  to  be  perfected  by  exemption /row 

^  Bengel  well:  Simpliciter  recensetur  oratio  architricliui  et  consue- 
tudo  etiam  Judteoruni ;  ebrietas  non  approbatur. 

^  The  Attic  ^iirfojri'i,^  (=zi3dcoc^jz  ^in-ai=zjz  sextarii)  contains  8 
gallons  yi&s  pints,  imperial  measure ;  so  that  each  of  these  six  vessels, 
containing  two  or  three  /^leTfiijrai  apiece,  did  in  round  numbers  hold  some 
twenty  gallons  or  more. 

*  Calvin :  Nostro  vitio  fit,  si  ejus  benignitas  irritamentum  est  luxuria3 ; 
quiu  potius  hfiec  temperantire  nostrte  vera  est  probatio,  si  in  media 
affluentia  parci  tamen  et  moderati  sumus :  cf.  Suicer,  T/ies.  s.  v.  oZrot-. 
It  is  instructive  to  notice  the  ascetic  tone  which  Strauss  takes  (Lcben 
JesUf  vol.  ii.  p.  229),  when  speaking  of  this  '  Luxuswunder,'  as  he  terms 
it,  contrasted  with  that  which  he  assumes  when  he  desires  to  depreciate 
the  character  of  John  the  Baptist :  but  truly  he  is  of  that  generation 
that  call  Jesus  a  wine-bibber,  and  say  that  John  has  a  devil ;  with 
whom  that  which  is  godlike  can  in  no  form  find  favour.     Some  of 


Il8  THE    WATER    TURNED   INTO    WINE. 

temptation,  but  ratlier  by  victory  in  temptation;  and  the 
only  temperance  wliicli  has  any  value  at  all,  which  indeed 
deserves  the  name,  is  one  which  has  its  source  not  in  the 
scanty  supply,  but  in  the  strong  self-restraint.  That  this 
gift  should  be  large,  was  what  we  might  have  looked  for. 
He,  a  King,  gave  as  became  a  Icing.  No  niggard  giver  in 
the  ordinary  bounties  of  his  kingdom  of  nature  (Ps.  Ixv. 
9-13),  neither  was  He  a  niggard  giver  now,  when  He 
brought  those  common  gifts  into  the  kingdom  of  his  grace, 
and  made  them  directly  to  serve  Him  there  (cf.  Luke 
V.  6,  7). 

But  the  governor  of  the  feast,  who  only  meant  to  de- 
scribe a  sordid  economy  of  this  world,  gave  utterance  to  a 
deeper  truth  than  he  meant.  Such  at  any  rate  may  be 
most  fitly  superinduced  upon  his  words  j  nothing  less  than 
the  whole  difference  between  the  order  of  Christ's  giving 
and  of  the  world's.  The  world  does  indeed  give  its  best 
and  choicest,  its  '  good  wine,''  first,  but  has  only  poorer 
substitutes  at  the  last.  '  When  men  have  loell  chunk,'  when 
their  spiritual  palate  is  blunted,  when  they  have  lost  the 
discernment  between  moral  good  and  evil,  then  it  palms 
on  them  that  which  is  worse ;  what  it  would  not  have 
dared  to  offer  at  the  first, — coarser  pleasures,  viler  enjoy- 
Mients,  the  drink  of  a  more  deadly  wine.  Those  who  wor- 
ship the  world  must  confess  at  last  that  it  is  best  repre- 
sented by  that  great  image  which  Nebuchadnezzar  beheld 
in  his  dream  (Dan.  ii.  31) ;  the  head  showing  as  fine  gold, 
but  the  material  growing  ever  baser,  till  it  finishes  with 
the  iron  and  clay  at  the  last. 

'  To  be  a  prodigal's  favourite,  then,  worse  lot ! 
A  miser's  pensioner,' 

this  is  the  portion  of  its  votaries.  But  it  is  otherwise  with 
the  guests  of  Christ,  the  heavenly  bridegroom.  He  ever 
reserves  for  them  whom  He  has  bidden,  '  the  good  wine ' 

Woolston's  vilest  ribaldry  (Fourth  Discourse  on  the  Miracles  of  our 
Saviour,  p.  23  sqq[.)  is  spent  upon  this  theme. 


THE    WATER    TURNED   INTO    WINE.  iig 

unto  tlie  last.'  In  the  words  of  the  most  eloquent  of  onr 
divines,  '  The  world  presents  us  with  fair  language,  pro- 
mising hopes,  convenient  fortunes,  pompous  honours,  and 
these  are  the  outside  of  the  bowl;  but  when  it  is  swal- 
lowed, these  dissolve  in  an  instant,  and  there  remains 
bitterness  and  the  malignity  of  coloquintida.  Every  sin 
smiles  in  the  first  address,  and  carries  light  in  the  face, 
and  honey  in  the  lij) ;  but  when  we  "  have  well  drunJc," 
then  comes  "  that  lohich  is  worse,"  a  whip  with  six  strings, 
fears  and  terrors  of  conscience,  and  shame  and  displeasure, 
and  a  caitiff  disposition,  and  diffidence  in  the  day  of  death. 
But  when  after  the  manner  of  purifying  of  the  Christians, 
we  fill  our  waterpots  with  water,  watering  our  couch  with 
our  tears,  and  moistening  our  cheeks  with  the  perpetual 
distillations  of  repentance,  then  Christ  turns  our  water 
into  wine,  first  penitents  and  then  communicants — first 
waters  of  sorrow  and  then  the  wine  of  the  chalice ;  .  .  . 
for  Jesus  keeps  the  best  wine  to  the  last,  not  only  because 
of  the  direct  reservations  of  the  highest  joys  till  the  nearer 
approaches  of  glory,  but  also  because  our  relishes  are 
higher  after  a  long  fruition  than  at  the  first  essays,  such 

*  Thus  II.  de  Sto.  Victore  (De  Are.  Mor.  i.  i)  :  Oimiis  namque  homo, 
id  est,  carnalis  primum  vinuni  bnnum  ponit,  quia  in  sua  delectatioue  fal- 
sam  quandam  dulcedinem  sentit;  sed  postquam  furor  mali  desiderii 
mentem  inebriaverit,  tunc  quod  deterius  est  propinat,  quia  spina  conscien- 
tise  superveniens  mentem,  quara  prius  falso  delectabat,  graviter  cruciat. 
Sed  Sponsus  noster  postremo  viuura  bonum  porrigit,  dura  mentem,  quara 
sui  dulcedine  amoris  replere  disponit,  quadara  prius  tribulationum  com- 
punctione  amaricari  sinit,  ut  post  gustum  amaritudinis  avidius  bibatur 
suavissimum  poculum  caritatis.  Corn,  a  Lapide  :  Ilic  e.st  typus  fallacisc 
mundi,  qui  initio  res  speciosas  oculis  objicit,  deinde  sub  iis  deteriores 
et  Tiles  inducit,  itaque  sui  amatores  decipit  et  illudit.  An  unknown 
author  (Bernardi  0pp.  vol.  ii.  p.  513)  :  In  futura  enim  vita  aqua  oumis 
laboris  et  actionis  terrenfe  in  vinura  divinte  contemplationis  commuta- 
bitur,  iniplebunturque  omnes  hydriae  usque  ad  summum.  Omnes  enira 
implebuntur  in  bonis  domus  Domini,  cum  illae  desiderabiles  nuptise 
Sponsi  et  sponsae  celebrabuntur :  bibeturque  in  summa  loetitia  omnium 
clamantium  Domino  et  dicentium ;  Tu  bonum  vinum  servasti  usque 
adhuc.     I  know  not  from  whence  this  line  comes, 

lUe  merum  tarde,  dat  tamen  illtj  raerum; 
but  it  evidently  belongs  to  this  miracle. 


120  rilE    WATER    TURNED   INTO    WINE. 

being  tlie  nature  of  grace,  that  it  increases  in  relish  as  it 
does  in  fruition,  every  part  of  grace  being  new  duty  and 
new  reward.'' 

*  This  heginning  of  miracles  did  Jesus  in  Cana  of  Galilee,* 
■ — even  there  where  it  was  prophesied  long  before  that  the 
people  which  sat  in  darkness  should  see  a  great  light 
(Isai.  ix.  I  ;  Matt.  iv.  14-16).  The  Evangelist  expressly 
and  pointedly  excludes  from  historic  credit  the  miracles  of 
the  Infancy,  which  are  found  in  such  rank  abundance  in 
nearly  all  the  apocryphal  Gospels ;  for,  of  course,  he  does 
not  mean  that  this  was  the  first  mii-acle  which  Jesus 
wrought  in  Cana,  but  that  this  miracle  in  Cana  was  the 
first  which  He  wrought ;  ^  and  the  Church  has  ever  regarded 
these  words  as  decisive  on  this  point.^  The  statement  is 
important,  and  connects  itself  with  one  main  purj)Ose  of 
St.  John  in  his  Gospel,  namely,  to  repel  and  remove  all 
unreal  notions  concerning  the  person  of  his  Lord — notions 
which  nothing  would  have  helped  more  to  uphold  than 
those  merely  phantastic  and  capricious  miracles,  favourites, 
therefore,  with  all  manner  of  docetic  heretics, — which  are 
ascribed  to  his  infancy. 

Of  none  less  than  the  Son  could  it  be  affirmed  that  He 
*  manifested  forth  his  glory  ; '  for  *  glory  '  {ho^a)  here  being 
no  creaturely  attribute  but  a  divine,  comprehended  and 

1  Jeremy  Taylor,  Life  of  Christ.  Worthy  to  stand  beside  this,  and 
unfolding  the  same  thought,  is  that  exquisite  poem  in  The  Christian 
Year,  upon  the  second  Sunday  after  Epiphany,  suggested  by  this  miracle, 
the  Gospel  of  that  day;  while  Plato  {Rejh  x.  613)  supplies  a  grand 
heathen  parallel,  and  commentary,  by  anticipation  on  these  words. 

2  Thus  Tertullian  {De  Bapt.  9)  calls  it,  prima  rudimenta  potestatis 
8UJB ;  and  this  day  has  been  sometini'js  called,  dies  natalis  virtutum 
Domini. 

3  Thus  see  Epiphanius  {liar.  li.  20),  from  whom  we  gather  that  some 
Catholics  were  inclined  to  admit  these  miracles  of  the  Infancy,  as 
affording  an  argument  against  the  Cerinthians,  and  a  proof  that  it  was 
not  at  his  Baptism  first  that  the  Christ  was  united  to  the  man  Jesus. 
And  Euthymius  (in  loc.)  :  'iaTopt](7iv  avrd  [o  'Iwawijc],  xpr}(Tin(vov  ilg  to  yy) 
TrinrtvHV  tuIq  Xtyoi^ni'otg  TrniSiKo7g  Pa^''\iani  rot)  XpKtrov.  Cf.  Chrysostoni, 
Horn,  xvi.,  XX.,  xxii.  in  Joh. ;  and  Thilo,  Cod.  Apocr.  p.  Ixxxiv.  sqq. 


THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE.  ill 

iuvolved  in  the  idea  of  the  Logos  as  the  absolute  Light, 
every  other  would  have  manifested  forth  the  glory  of  God ; 
He  only,  being  God,  could  manifest  forth  his  own.'  As 
God  He  rays  forth  light  from  Himself,  and  this  effluence  is 
'  his  glory  '  (John  i.  14 ;  Matt.  xvi.  27  ;  Mark  viii.  38).  The 
Evangelist,  as  one  cannot  doubt,  has  Isai.  xl.  5, — '  and  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  revealed,' — in  his  eye,  claiming 
that  in  this  act  of  Christ's  those  words  were  fulfilled.  Of 
this  '  glory  of  the  Lord '  we  hear  continually  in  the  Old 
Testament:  thus  Ezek.  xi.  23 ;  xxxix.  21 ;  xliii.  2.  While 
He  tabernacled  as  the  Son  of  Man  upon  earth  it  was  for 
the  most  part  hidden.  The  veil  of  flesh  which  He  had 
consented  to  wear  concealed  it  from  the  sight  of  men. 
But  now,  in  this  work  of  grace  and  power,  it  burst  through 
the  covering  which  concealed  it,  revealing  itself  to  the 
eyes  of  his  disciples  ;  they  '  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as 
of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father.' ^     ^  And  Ids  discijples 

^  "We  should  not  fail  to  put  iuto  connexion  the  t/ai'^/u-jo-f  of  this 
Christ's  first  miracle,  and  the  i(pnviimni  of  his  last  (xxi.  i,  14).  It  is  to 
be  regretted  that  the  same  English  word  has  not  on  all  these  occasions 
been  used.  On  this  matter  Godet  has  beautifully  said :  Les  miracles 
de  Jesus  ne  sont  pas  de  simples  prodiges  (r'tpma)  destines  a  frapper 
rim  agination ;  ce  sont  des  emblemes  visibles  de  ce  qu'il  est,  et  de  ce 
qu'il  vient  faire,  et  des  images  rayounantes  du  miracle  permanent  de  la 
manifestation  du  Christ. 

^  The  Eastern  Church  counted  the  Baptism  of  Christ,  being  his  recog- 
nition before  men  and  by  men  in  his  divine  character,  for  the  great 
manifestation  of  his  glory  to  the  world,  for  his  Ejiiphamj,  and  was  wont 
to  celebrate  it  as  such.  But  the  Western,  which  laid  not  such  stress  on 
the  Baptism,  saw  his  Epiphany  rather  in  the  adoration  of  the  Magians, 
the  first-fruits  of  the  heathen  world.  At  a  later  period,  indeed,  it 
placed  other  great  moments  in  his  life,  moments  in  which  his  Su^a 
gloriously  shone  out,  in  connexion  with  this  festival ;  such,  for  instance, 
as  the  Baptism,  as  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  and  as  this  turning 
of  the  water  into  wine,  which  last  continually  affords  a  theme  to  later 
writers  of  the  Western  Church  for  the  homily  at  Epiphany,  as  it 
gives  m  the  Gospel  for  one  of  the  Epiphany  Sundays.  But  these 
secondary  allusions  belong  not  to  the  first  introduction  of  the  feast,  so 
that  the  following  passage  should  have  prevented  the  editors  of  the  new 
volume  of  St.  Augustine's  sermons  (^Senn.  Inediti,  Paris  1842)  from 
attributing  the  sermon  which  contains  it  (Sertn.  xxxviii.  in  Epiph.)  to 
him :  Hodiernam  diem  Ecclesia  per  orbem  celebrat  totum,  sive  quod 
Btella  prje  ceteris  fulgens  divitibus  Magis  parvum  non  parvi  llegis  mon- 


122  THE    WATER    TURNED   INTO    WINE. 

lelievecl  on  Him'  (cf.  xvi.  30,  31).  The  worlv,  besides  its 
more  immediate  purpose,  had  this  further  result ;  it  con- 
firmed, strengthened,  exalted  their  faith,  who,  already 
believing  in  Him,  were  thus  the  more  capable  of  receiving 
an  increase  of  faith, —  of  being  lifted  from  faith  to  faith, 
advanced  from  faith  in  an  earthly  teacher  to  faith  in  a 
heavenly  Lord'  (i  Kin.  xvii.  24). 

This  first  miracle  of  the  New  Covenant  has  its  inner 
mystical  meaning.  The  first  miracle  of  Moses  was  a 
turning  of  water  into  blood  (Exod.  vii.  20) ;  and  this  had 
its  fitness ;  for  the  law,  which  came  by  Moses,  was  a 
ministration  of  death,  and  working  -wrath  (2  Cor.  iii.  6-9). 
But  the  first  miracle  of  Christ  was  a  turning  of  water  into 
wine,  this  too  a  meet  inauguration  of  all  which  shpuld 
follow,  for  his  was  a  ministration  of  life ;  He  came,  the 
dispenser  of  that  true  wine  that  maketh  glad  the  heart  of 
man  (Ps.  civ.  15).  Yet  as  Moses  there,  where  lie  stands 
in  contrast  to  Christ,  has  a  change  to  the  worse,  so  in 
another  j^la-ce,  where  he  stands  as  his  type,  he  has,  like 
Him,  a  change  to  the  better  (Exod.  xv.  25),  changing  the 
bitter  waters  to  sweet ;  thus  too  Elisha  (2  Kin.  ii.  19-22) ; 
while  yet  the  more  excellent  transmutation,  which  should 
be  not  merely  the  rectifying  of  qualities  already  existing, 
but  the  imparting  of  new,  was  reserved  for  the  Son  ;  who 
was  indeed  not  a  betterer  of  the  old  life  of  man,  but  the 
bringer  in  of  a  new ;  who  did  not  reform,  but  regenerate. 
This  prophetic  aspect  of  the  miracle  we  must  by  no  means 

stravithospitiiim,  sive  quod  hodie  Christus  primimi  fecisse  dicitur  signiim, 
quando  aquas  repente  commutavit  in  vinum,  sive  quod  a  Joanne  isto  die 
creditur  baptizatus  et  Patris  consona  voce  Dei  filius  revelatur.  In  his 
genuine  sermons  Augustine  knows  only  of  the  adoration  of  the  Wise 
Men  as  the  scriptural  fact  vphich  the  Epiphany  commemorates. 

*  This  is  plainly  the  true  explanation  (in  the  words  of  Ammonias,  npon- 
6t]Kr)v  ici^avTi)  Tivn  -()(;  j/f  avToi'  Trirrrnijc,  of  Grotius,  Credidisse  dicuntuf 
qui  firmius  credunt)  ;  not  that  which  Augustine  (De  Cons,  Evang.  ii. 
17),  for  the  interests  of  his  Harmony,  upholds;  namety,  that  they  are 
called  'disciples'  by  anticipation;  because  subsequently  to  the  miracle 
they  believed  (non  jam  discipulos,  sed  qui  futuri  eraut  discipuli  intelligera 
debemus) ;  as  one  might  say,  The  Apostle  Paul  was  bom  at  Tarsus. 


THE    WATER    TURNED   INTO    WINE.  123 

miss.  He  who  turned  now  the  water  into  wine,  should 
turn  in  like  manner  the  poorer  dispensation,  the  thin  and 
watery  elements  of  the  Jewish  religion  (Heb.  vii.  18),  into 
richer  and  nobler,  into  the  gladdening  wine  of  a  higher 
faith.  The  whole  Jewish  dispensation  in  its  comparative 
weakness  and  poverty  was  aptly  symbolized  by  the  water ; 
and  only  in  type  and  prophecy  could  it  point  to  Him,  who 
should  come  '  binding  his  foal  unto  the  vine,  and  his  ass's 
colt  unto  the  choice  vine  ; '  who  '  washed  his  garments  in 
wine  and  his  clothes  in  the  blood  of  grapes  '  (Gen.  xlix.  1 1 ; 
cf.  John  XV.  i),  and  who  now  by  this  work  of  his  gave 
token  that  He  was  indeed  come,  that  his  j)eople's  joy  might 
be  full.^     Nor  less  do  we  behold  symbolized  here,  that 

'  Corn,  a  Lapide :  Christus  ergo  initio  suae  prsedicationis  mutana 
aquam  in  vinum  significabat  se  legem  Mosaicam,  instar  aquaj  insipidam 
et  frigidam,  conversurum  in  Evangelium  gi-atite,  quEe  instar  vina  est, 
generosa,  sapida,  ardens,  et  efficax.  And  Bernard,  in  a  preeminently 
beautiful  sermon  upon  this  miracle  (Bened.  ed.  p.  814):  Tunc  [aqua] 
mutatur  in  vinum,  cum  timor  expellitur  a  caritate,  et  implentur  omnia 
fervore  spiritus  et  jucunda  devotione  ;  cf.  De  Divers.  Serm.  xviii.  2  ;  and 
Eusebius  {Dem.  J^vang.  ix.  8)  :  Si'/j/JoAov  fjv  to  irapaCD^hv  fiVJTiKMTfpov 
KpOfiaroc,  fitrajiKiiO-prof;  t/c  -)}(,•  aiopariKtorffjai;  tTi  Tt)v  vuepav  Kcii  Tn>iiii^iaTiKt)v 
ivipp()nvvi]V  rou  TTirrriKOV  rj)(,'  Kati'))^  ^laOi'iicric  Kpaixaroc.      AugUStine  is  in  the 

same  line,  when  he  says  (7?j  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  ix.) :  Tollitur  velamen,  cum 
transieris  ad  Dominum,  .  .  .  et  quod  aqua  erat,  vinum  tibi  fit.  Lege 
libros  onmes  propheticos,  non  iutellecto  Christo,  quid  tarn  insipidum  et 
fatuum  invenies?  Intellige  ibi  Christum,  non  solum  sapit  quod  legis, 
sed  etiam  inebriat.  lie  illustrates  this  from  Luke  xxiv.  25-27.  Gregory 
the  Great  {Horn.  vi.  in  Ezek.)  gives  it  another  turn  :  Aquam  nobis  in 
vinum  vertit,  quando  ipsa  historia  per  allegoric  mysterium,  in  spiritalem 
nobis  intelligentiam  commutatur. — Before  the  rise  of  the  Eutychian 
heresy  had  made  it  perilous  to  use  such  terms  as  Kpanc,  avaicpanic,  /uKii:, 
to  designate  the  union  of  tlie  two  natures  in  Christ,  or  such  phrases  as 
Tertullian's  Deo  mixtus  homo,  we  sometimes  find  allusions  to  what 
Christ  here  did,  as  though  it  were  symbolical  of  the  ennobling  of  the 
human  nature  through  its  being  transfused  by  the  divine  in  his  person. 
Thus  Irenjeus  (v.  i,  3)  complains  of  the  Ebionites,  that  they  cling  to  the 
first  Adam  who  was  cast  out  of  Paradise,  and  will  know  nothing  of  the 
second,  its  restorer :  Reprobant  itaque  hi  commixtiouem  vini  caslostis,  et 
Bolam  aquam  secularem  voluut  esse, — so  Dorner  (  Von  der  Person  Christi, 
p.  57)  understands  this  passage:  yet  possibly  he  may  refer  there  to  their 
characteristic  custom  of  using  water  alone,  instead  of  wine  mingled  with 
water,  in  the  Holy  Communion :  the  passage  will  even  then  show  how 
Irenfeus  found  in  the  \vine  and  in  the  water  apt  symbols  of  the  higher 
and  the  lower,  of  the  divine  and  human. 


124  THE    WATER   TURNED  INTO    WINE. 

whole  work  whicli  tlie  Son  of  God  is  evermore  accomplishing 
in  the  world, — ennobling  all  that  He  touches,  making 
saints  out  of  smners,  angels  out  of  men,  and  in  the  end 
heaven  out  of  earth,  a  new  paradise  of  God  out  of  the  old 
wilderness  of  the  world.  For  the  prophecy  of  the  world's 
regeneration,  of  the  day  in  which  his  disciples  shall  drink 
of  the  finiit  of  the  vine  new  in  his  kingdom,  is  here.  In 
this  humble  supper  we  have  the  rudiments  of  the  glorious 
festival,  at  the  arrival  of  which  his  '  liour '  shall  have 
indeed  come,  who  is  Himself  the  true  Bridegroom,  even  as 
his  Church  is  the  Bride. 

Irenseus  associates  this  miracle  and  that  of  the  multiply- 
ing of  the  loaves ;  •  and,  contemplating  them  together  as  a 
prophecy  of  the  Eucharist,  finds  alike  in  each  a  witness 
against  all  Gnostic,  as  Chrysostom  against  all  Manichsean,^ 
notions  of  a  creation  originally  impure.  The  Lord,  he 
says,  might  have  created,  with  no  subjacent  material,  the 
wine  with  which  he  cheered  these  guests,  the  bread  with 
whicli  He  fed  those  multitudes ;  but  He  preferred  to  put 
forth  his  power  on  his  Father's  creatures,  in  witness  that 
the  same  God,  who  in  the  beginning  had  made  the  waters 
and  caused  the  earth  to  bear  its  fruits,  did  in  those  last 
days  give  by  his  Son  the  cup  of  blessing  and  the  bread  of 
life.3 

'   Con.  liar.  iii.  1 1 . 
"^  Horn.  xxii.  in  Joh, 

^  The  account  of  this  miracle  by  Sedulius  is  a  favourable  specimen  of 
his  poetry : 

Prima  suae  Dominus,  thalamis  dignatus  adesse, 
Virtutis  documenta  dedit ;  convivaque  prajsens 
Pascere,  non  pasci,  Teniens,  mirabile !  fusas 
In  vinum  convertit  aquas ;  dimittere  gaudent 
Pallorem  latices  ;  mutavit  laesa  [laeta  ?]  saporem 
Unda  suum,  largita  merum,  mensasque  per  onmes 
Dulcia  non  nato  rubuerunt  pocula  musto. 
Implevit  sex  ergo  lacus  hoc  nectare  Christus, 
Quippe  ferax  qui  Vitis  erat,  virtute  cnlona 
Omnia  fructificans,  cujus  sub  tegmine  blando 
Mitis  inocciduas  enutrit  pampinus  uvas. 


THE    WATER     TUBBED   INTO    WINE.  125 

And  Crashaw's  lines  are  pretty  : 

Unde  rubor  vestris  et  non  sua  purpura  lymphis  ? 

Quae  rosa  mirantes  taoi  nova  mutat  aquas  ? 
Numen,  convivre,  prfesens  agnoscite  nunien : 

Lympha  pudica  Deum  vidit  et  erubuit. 

It  was  a  fiivourite  subject  for  earliest  Christian  Art.  On  many  old 
sarcophagi  Jesus  is  seen  standing  and  touching  with  the  rod  of  Moses, 
the  rod  of  might  usually  placed  in  his  hand  when  He  is  set  forth  as  a 
worker  of  wonders,  three  vessels, — three,  because  In  his  skill-less  delinea- 
tions the  artist  could  not  manage  to  find  room  for  more.  Sometimes  He 
has  a  I  oil  of  wi-iting  in  his  hand,  as  much  as  to  say,  This  is  written  in 
the  Scripture ;  or  the  governor  of  the  feast  is  somewhat  earnestly  re- 
buking the  bridegroom  for  having  withheld  the  good  wine  to  the  last ; 
having  himself  tasted,  he  is  giving  to  him  the  cup,  to  convince  him  of 
bis  error  (Miinter,  Sinnbild.  d.  ait.  Christ,  vol.  ii.  p.  92), 


I.  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  NOBLEMA'S'S  SON. 

John  iv.  46-54- 

THE  difficulties  of  the  tliree  verses  -wliicli  go  before  tliis 
miracle  (ver.  43-45),  and  which,  so  to  speak,  account 
for  the  Lord's  renewed  presence  at  Cana,  are  considerable, 
and  the  explanations  of  these  difficulties  very  various. 
But  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter  here  on  this  tangled  question, 
and  it  will  be  sufficient  to  take  up  the  thread  of  the  narra- 
tive at  ver.  46  :  ^80  Jesus  came  again  into  Cana  of  Galilee, 
where  He  made  the  water  ivine.^  It  is  altogether  in  St. 
John's  manner  thus  to  identify  a  place  or  person,  by  some 
single  circumstance  which  has  made  them  memorable  in 
the  Church  for  ever ;  thus  compare  vii.  50  ;  xix.  39  ;  again, 
i.  44;  xii.  21;  and  again,  xiii.  23,  25;  xxi.  20.  ^  And 
there  was  a  certain  nobleman,^  whose  son  was  sicJc  at  Caper- 

^  The  precise  meaning  of  jictniKiKOQ  here  can  never  he  exactly  fixed ; 
Chrysostom  {Horn.  xxxv.  in  Jvh.)  can  only  suggest  a  meaning;  so  that 
even  in  his  day  it  was  obscure  to  them  with  whom  Greek  was  a  living 
language.  Three  meanings  have  been  offered.  Either  he  is  one  of  the 
king's  party,  a  royalist,  one  of  those  that  sided  with  the  faction  of  the 
Herods,  father  and  son,  and  helped  to  maintain  them  on  the  throne,  in 
fact  'an  Herodian'  (Lightfoot)  ;  or,  with  a  narrower  signification,  he  is 
one  attached  to  the  court,  '  a  courtier,'  so  in  the  margin  of  our  Bibles  ; 
aulicus,  or  as  Jerome  {In  Esai.  Ixv.)  calls  him  palatinus  (regulus  qui 
Gr£Ece  dicitur  /Sa-nXm-oc,  quern  nos  de  aula  regia  rectius  interpretari 
^osswravLS  palatinum  (so  Plutarch,  aSo/.  xxvii. ;  Adc.  Col.  xxxiii. ;  Josephus, 
B.  J.  vii.  5,2) ;  or  /3iiiiXiiroc  may  mean  one  of  royal  blood  ;  in  Lucian  it 
is  four  times  applied  to  kings,  or  those  related  to  them.  Perhaps  no 
better  term  could  be  found  than  *  nohlemari,^  which  has  something  of  the 
doubtfulness  of  the  original  which  it  renders.  I  borrow  from  Malan 
(JSU  John,  translated  from  the  eleven  oldest  Versions)  the  following  list  of 


HEALING   THE  NOBLEMAN'S  SON.  127 

naiim ' — possibly,  as  by  some  has  been  supposed/  Chuza, 
*  Herod's  steward,'  wliose  wife,  remarkably  enongli,  appears 
among  the  holy  women  that  ministered  to  the  Lord  of 
their  substance  (Luke  viii.  3 ;  ef.  ver.  53).  Only  some 
mighty  and  marvellous  work  of  this  kind  would  have 
drawn  a  steward  of  Herod's,  with  his  family,  into  the 
Gospel  net.  Others  have  suggested  Manaen,  the  foster- 
brother  of  Herod  (Acts  xiii.  i).  But  whether  one  of  these, 
or  some  other  not  elsewhere  named  in  Scripture,  *  when  he 
heard  that  Jesus  ivas  come  out  of  Judcea  into  Galilee,  he  went 
unto  Him,  and  besought  Him  that  He  would  come  dovjn,  and 
heal  his  son ;  for  he  was  at  the  ■point  of  death.'  From  a 
certain  severity  which  speaks  out  in  our  Lord's  reply, 
'  Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders,  ye  tvill  not  believe,'  we 
conclude  that  this  petitioner  was  one  driven  to  Jesus  by 
the  strong  constraint  of  an  outward  need,  a  need  which  no 
other  but  He  could  supply  (Isai.  xxvi.  16),  rather  than  one 
draivn  by  the  inner  necessities  and  desires  of  his  soul ;  one 
who  would  not  have  come  at  all,  but  for  this.'  Sharing  in 
the  carnal  temper  of  the  Jews  in  general  (for  the  plural, 
'  i/e  tvill  not  believe,'  is  meant  to  include  many  in  a  common 
condemnation),  he  had  (hitherto,  at  least)  no  organ  fcr 
perceiving  the  glory  of  Christ  as  it  shone  out  in  his  person 
and  in  his  doctrine.  *  8igns  and  wonders '  might  compel 
him  to  a  belief,  but  nothing  else ;  unlike  those  Samaritans 
whom  the  Lord  had  just  quitted,  and  who,  without  a 
miracle,  had  *  believed  because  of  his  word '  (John  iv.  41). 

renderings :  Syiiac,  '  liing's  servant ; '  Armenian,  '  one  of  tlie  royal 
family ; '  Georgian,  '  government  officer ; '  Slavonic,  '  courtier ; '  Anglo- 
Saxon,  *under-king.' 

1  Lightfoot,  Chemnitz,  and  others. 

^  Augustine  (7m  Ec.  Joh.  tract,  xvi.)  takes  a  still  more  unfavourable 
estimate  of  the  moral  condition  of  this  suppliant,  classing  him  with  those 
who  asked  of  the  Lord  a  sign,  tempting  Him :  Arguit  hominem  in  fide 
tepidum  aut  frigidum,  ant  omnino  nullius  tidei :  sed  tentare  cupientem 
de  sanitate  filii  sui,  qualis  esset  Christus,  qusi  esset,  quantum  posset 
Verba  enira  rogantis  audivimus,  cor  diffidentis  non  videmus;  sed  illo 
pronuntiavit,  qui  et  verba  audivit,  et  cor  inspoxit.  But  coming  in  that 
temper,  he  would  never  have  carried  away  a  blessing  at  the  last. 


128  HEALING   THE  NOBLEMAN'S  SON. 

But  '  the  Jews  require  a  sign '  (i  Cor.  i.  22),  and  tliis  one, 
in  the  poverty  of  his  present  faith,  straitened  and  limited 
the  power  of  the  Lord.  Christ  must  '  come  dovm^  ^  if  his 
son  is  to  be  healed ;  he  cannot  raise  himself  to  the  height 
of  those  words  of  the  Psalmist,  '  He  seni  his  word,  and  He 
healed  them.'  * 

And  yet,  if  there  be  rebuke  in  the  Lord's  answer,  there 
is  encouragement  too ;  an  implied  promise  of  a  miracle, 
even  while  the  man  is  blamed,  that  he  needed  a  mii'acle, 
that  less  than  a  miracle  would  not  induce  him  to  put  his 
trust  in  the  Lord  of  life.'  And  so  he  accepts  it ;  for 
reading  no  repulse  in  this  word  of  a  seeming,  and  indeed 
of  a  real,  severity,  he  only  urges  his  suit  the  more  earnestly, 
*  Bir,  come  down  *  ere  my  child  die*  Still,  it  is  true,  he  links 
help  to  the  bodily  presence  of  the  Lord  ;  is  still  far  off 
from  the  faith  and  humility  of  another  (Matt.  viii.  8),  who 
said,  '  Lord,  I  am  not  worthy  that  thou  shouldest  come 
under  my  roof;  but  speak  the  word  only,  and  my  servant 
shall  be  healed.'  Much  less  does  he  dream  of  a  power 
that  could  raise  the  dead :  Christ  might  heal  his  sick  ;  he 
does  not  dream  of  Him  as  one  who  could  raise  his  dead. 
A  faith  so  weak  must  be  strengthened,  and  can  only  be 
strengthened  through  being  proved.  Such  a  gracious 
pui'pose  of  at  once  proving  and  strengthening  it  we  trace 
in  the  Lord's  dealing  with  the  man  which  follows.     He 

^  Gregory  the  Great  {In  Ev.  Horn,  xxviii.) :  Minus  itaque  in  ilium 
credidit,  quem  non  putavit  posse  salutem  dare,  nisi  prseseus  esset  in 
corpore. 

^  Bengel  lays  the  entire  emphasis  on  tcii^rt  in  our  Lord's  answer :  Innuit 
Jesus  se  etiam  absenti  reguli  filio  posse  vitam  dare ;  et  postulat  ut 
regulus  id  credat,  neque  profectionem  Jesu  postulet  suscipiendam  cum 
ipso  sanationem  apud  lectulum  visuro.  Others  have  done  the  same :  see 
Kocher,  Analeda  (in  loc). 

^  Bengel :  Simul  autem  miraculum  promittitur,  fidesque  prius  etiam 
desideratur,  et  dura  desideratur,  excitatur.  Kesponsum  externa  qutidam 
repulsK)  specie  et  tacita  opispromissioneniixtum,congruit  sensui  rogantis 
ex  fide  et  imbecillitate  mixto. 

•*  KfiTo/3;j0(,  Capernaum  lying  upon  the  shore,  and  lower  than  Cana, 
where  now  they  were. 


HEALING   THE  NOBLEMAN'S   SON.  129 

does  not  come  down  with  liim,  as  lie  had  prayed ;  but 
sends  him  away  with  a  mere  word  of  assurance  that  it 
should  go  well  with  his  child  :  '  Go  thy  way  ;  thy  son  liveth '  ^ 
(cf.  Matt.  viii.  13  ;  Mark  vii.  29).  And  the  father  was 
contented  with  that  assurance  ;  he  '  believed  the  word  that 
Jesus  had  sjpohen  unto  him,  and  he  went  his  way,*  expecting" 
to  find  that  it  should  be  done  according  to  that  word. 
The  miracle  was  a  double  one — on  the  body  of  the  absent 
child ;  on  the  heart  of  the  present  father ;  one  cured  of 
his  sickness,  the  other  of  his  unbelief. 

A  comparison  of  the  Lord's  dealing  with  this  nobleman 
and  with  the  centurion  of  the  other  Gospels  is  instructive. 
He  has  not  men's  persons  in  admiration,  who  will  not  come, 
but  only  sends  to  the  son  of  this  nobleman  (cf.  2  Kin.  v. 
10,  11),  Himself  visiting  the  servant  of  that  centurion.^ 
And  there  is  more  in  the  matter  than  this.  Here,  being 
entreated  to  come.  He  does  not ;  but  sends  his  healing 
word  ;  there,  being  asked  to  speak  at  a  distance  that  word 
of  healing,  He  rather  proposes  Himself  to  come  ;  for  here, 
as  Chrysostom  explains  it  well,  a  narrow  and  poor  faith  is 
enlarged  and  deepened,  there  a  strong  faith  is  crowned 
and  rewarded.  By  not  going  He  increases  this  nobleman's 
faith ;  by  offering  to  go  He  brings  out  and  honours  that 
centurion's  humility. 

^  And  as  he  was  now  going  down,  his  servants  met  him, 
saying.  Thy  son  liveth.'  Though  faith  had  not  struck  its 
roots  quickly  in  his  soul,  it  would  appear  to  have  struck 
them  strongly  at  last.  His  confidence  in  Christ's  word 
was  so  entire,  that  he  proceeded  leisurely*homewards.  It 
was  not  till  the  next  day  that  he  approached  his  house, 
though  the  distance  between  the  two  cities  was  not  so 
considerable  that  the  journey  need  have  occupied  many 

^  For  this  use  of  ^j/*'  as  to  be  healed  of  any  sore  sickness,  all  sickness 
being  death  beginning,  see  Isai.  xxxviii.  i  ;  2  Kin.  i.  2. 

*  Thus  the  Opus  Itnperf.  in  Matt.  Horn.  xxii. :  Ilium  ergo  eontemsit, 
quem  dignitas  sublevabat  regalis ;  istum  autem  honoravit,  quern  conditio 
humiliabat  servilis. 


130  HEALING   THE  NOBLEMAN'S  SON. 

hours;  but  'he  that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste.' 
'  Then  inquired  he  of  them  the  hour  when  he  began  to  amend,'' ' 
to  be  a  little  better ;  for  at  the  height  of  his  faith  the 
father  had  looked  only  for  a  slow  and  gradual  amendment. 
'And  they  said  unto  him.  Yesterday  at  the  seventh  hour  the 
fever  left  him.'  It  was  not  merely,  they  would  imply,  that 
at  the  hour  they  name  there  was  a  turning- ]3oint  in  the 
disorder,  and  the  violence  of  the  fever  abated  ;  but  it '  left^ 
him '  altogether ;  as  in  the  case  of  Simon's  wife's  mother, 
who,  at  Christ's  word,  *  immediately  arose  and  ministered 
unto  them  '  (Luke  iv.  39).  '  80  the  father  hieiu  that  it  was 
at  the  same  hour  in  the  which  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Thy  son 
liveth  :^  and  himself  believed  and  his  whole  house.'  This 
he  did  for  all  the  benefits  which  the  Lord  had  bestowed  on 
him,  he  accepted  another  and  the  crownmg  benefit,  even 
the  cup  of  salvation ;  and  not  he  alone ;  but,  as  so  often 
happened,  his  conversion  drew  after  it  that  of  all  who 
belonged  to  him  ;  for  by  consequences  such  as  these  God 
will  bring  us  unto  a  consciousness  of  the  manner  in  which 
not  merely  the  great  community  of  mankind,  but  each 
smaller  community,  a  nation,  or  as  in  this  case  a  family, 
is  united  and  bound  together  under  its  federal  head,  shares 
in  the  good  or  in  the  evil  which  is  his  (cf.  Acts  xvi.  15, 
34;  xviii.  8  4). 

^  Koi^ixpo-tpov  t(rx{=meliuscule  se  habuit.  Ko^npoQ  from  Kn/jfuj — so  in 
Latin,  comptus,  for  adorned  in  any  way.  Thus  in  Arrian  (Diss.  Epict. 
iii,  10)  ico//^""?  txf'C=belle  habes  (Cicero)  are  the  words  of  the  physician 
to  his  patient  that  is  getting  better. 

^  Ammonius  (in  Catena):  Ov  yap  cnrXuic,  nvok  w^  Irv^^tr,  aTrtjWiiyt]  rT;? 
ciffQiviiaQ  TO  Traict'or,  aW  df^'poor,  wt'  fpatPtaOai  fir)  (j/vjfojg  UKoXovtliav  ih'Ui  rh 
Qavnn,  aWa  rjjc,"  ivipytioQ  roc  \pi(jTov. 

^  A  beautiful  remark  of  Bengel's :  Quo  curatius  divina  opera  et  bene- 
ficia  considerantur,  eo  plus  nutrimeuti  fides  acquirit. 

*  The  Jews  have  their  miracle,  evidently  founded  upon,  and  in  rivalry 
of,  this,  Vitringa  (De  Syyiag.  p.  147)  quotes  it :  Quando  segrotavit  filius 
R.  Gamalielis,  duos  misit  studiosos  sapientife  ad  R.  Chanina,  Dusae  filium, 
ut  per  preces  pro  eo  gratiam  divinam  implorarent.  Postquam  eos  vidit, 
ascendit  in  ccenaculum  suum,  Deumque  pro  eo  oravit.  Ubi  vero  de- 
ecendit,  dixit,  Abite,  quia  febris  ilium  jam  dereliquit.  .  .  .  Illi  vero 
considentes,  signate  annotarunt  illam  horam,  et  quando  reversi  sunt  ad 


HEALING   THE  NOBLEMAN'S  SON.  131 

But  did  lie  not  believe  before  ?  Was  not  this  healing 
itself  a  gracious  reward  of  his  faith  ?  Yes,  he  believed 
that  particular  word  of  the  Lord's  ;  but  this  is  something 
more,  of  faith,  the  entering  into  the  number  of  Christ's 
disciples,  the  giving  of  himself  to  Him  as  to  the  promised 
Messiah.  Or,  admitting  that  he  already  truly  believed, 
there  may  be  indicated  here  a  heightening  and  augmenting 
of  his  faith.  For  faith  may  be  true,  and  yet  most  capable 
of  this  increase.  In  him  who  cried, '  Lord,  I  believe ;  help 
Thou  mine  unbelief  (Mark  ix.  24),  faith  was  indeed  bom, 
though  as  yet  its  actings  were  weak  and  feeble.  After 
and  in  consequence  of  the  first  miracle  of  the  water  made 
wine,  Christ's  'disciples  believed  on  Him'  (John  ii.  11), 
who  yet,  being  disciples,  must  have  believed  on  Him 
already.^  Apostles  themselves  exclaim,  '  Lord,  increase 
our  faith'  (Luke  xvii.  5).  The  Israelites  of  old,  who  fol- 
lowed Moses  through  the  Red  Sea,  must  have  already 
believed  that  he  was  God's  instrument  for  their  deliverance; 
yet  of  them  we  learn  that  after  the  great  overthrow  of 
Pharaoh  and  his  host,  they  *  believed  the  Lord,  and  his 
servant  Moses'  (Exod.  xiv.  31).  The  widow  whose  son 
Elijah  had  raised  from  the  dead,  exclaims,  '  Now  hy  this  I 
know  thou  art  a  man  of  God,  and  that  the  word  of  the 
Lord  in  thy  mouth  is  truth '  (i  Kin.  xvii.  24).  Knowing 
him  for  such  before  (ver.  1 8),  she  now  received  a  new  con- 
firmation of  her  faith  (cf.  John  xi.  15  ;  xiii.  19) ;  and  so 
we  must  accept  it  here.  Whether,  then,  we  understand 
that  faith  was  first  born  in  him  now,  or,  being  born 
already,  received  now  a  notable  increase,  it  is  plain  in 

E..  Gamaliftlem,  dixit  ipsis,  Per  cultum !  Nee  excessu  nee  defectu  tem- 
poris  peccastis,  sed  sic  prorsus  factum ;  ea  enim  ipsa  bora  dereliquit  ipsum 
febris,  et  petiit  a  nobis  aquam  potandam.     Cf.  Lampe,  Com.  in  Joh.  vol.  i. 

p.  813- 

*  Beda :  Unde  datur  intelligi  et  in  fide  gradus  esse,  sicut  et  in  aliis 
virtutibus,  quibus  est  initium,  incrementum,  et  perfectio.  Hujus  ergo 
fides  initium  babuit,  cum  filii  salutem  petiit:  incrementum,  cum  credidit 
sermoni  Domini  dieentis,  Filius  tuus  vivit ;  deinde  perfectionem  obtiauit, 
nuutiantibus  servis. 


132  HEALING   THE  NOBLEMAN'S  SON. 

either  case  that  the  Lord  by  those  words  of  his,  '  Except  ye 
see  signs  and  tuonders  ye  will  not  believe,' '  could  not  have 
intended  to  cast  any  slight  on  miracles,  as  a  mean  whereby 
men  may  be  brought  to  the  truth  ;  or  having  been  brought 
to  it,  are  more  strongly  established  and  confirmed  in  the 
same. 

One  question  before  leaving  this  miracle  claims  a  brief 
discussion,  namely,  whether  this  is  the  same  history  as 
that  of  the  servant  (Trats)  of  the  centurion  (Matt.  viii.  5 ; 
Luke  vii.  2)  ;  here  repeated  with  only  immaterial  varia- 
tions. It  would  almost  seem  as  if  Irenreus'  had  thought 
so ;  and  some  in  the  time  of  Chrysostom  identified  the 
two  miracles,  who  himself,  however,  properly  rejects  this 
rolling  up  of  the  two  narratives  into  one.  By  Ewald  too 
it  is  taken  for  granted,  though  without  the  smallest 
attempt  at  proof.'  There  is  nothing  to  warrant  it,  almost 
nothing  to  render  it  jplausible.  Not  merely  the  external 
circumstances  are  widely  different;  the  scene  of  that 
miracle  being  Capernaum,  of  this  Cana;  the  centurion 
there  a  heathen,  the  nobleman  here  a  Jew  (for  had  he 
been  other,  it  could  not  have  past  unnoticed,  our  Lord's 
contact  in  the  days  of  his  flesh  with  those  who  were  not 

1  This  passage  and  Matt.  xii.  38-40;  xvi.  1-4,  have  been  often  urged 
by  those  who  deny  that  Christ  laid  any  special  stress  on  his  miracles,  as 
proving  his  divine  mission  and  authority.  Those  from  St.  Matthew, 
indeed,  have  been  stretched  into  proofs  that, He  did  not  even  c/ai/yi  to  do 
any.  Thus  by  the  modern  rationalists,  though  the  abuse  of  the  passage 
is  as  old  as  Aquinas,  who  takes  note  of  and  rebukes  it.  But  our  Lord  is 
as  far  as  possible  from  denying  the  value  of  miracles,  or  affirming  that 
He  will  do  none  (Matt.  xi.  4,  5;  John  xiv.  11  ;  xv.  24)  ;  but  only,  that 
He  will  do  none  for  them,  for  an  evil  and  adulterous  generation,  which 
is  seeking,  not  helps  and  confirmations  of  faith,  but  excuses  and  subter- 
fuges for  unbelief.  These  works  of  grace  and  power  are  reserved  for 
those  who  are  receptive  of  impressions  from  them ;  seals  which  shall 
seal  softened  hearts ;  hearts  utterly  cold  and  hard  would  take  no  impres- 
sion from  them,  and  therefore  shall  not  be  tried  with  them. 

2  Co7t.  Ilcer.  ii.  22 :  Filium  centurionis  absens  verbo  curavit  dicens, 
Vade,  filius  tuus  vivit.  Yet  centurionis  may  well  be  only  a  slip  of  the 
pen  or  of  the  memory. 

'  Die  Johmmischen  Schriften,  vol.  i.  p.  197;  so  too  by  Semler,  De 
Wette,  Baur. 


HEALING    THE    NOBLEMAN'S   SON.  133 

of  tlie  cliosen  seed,  always  calling  out  special  remark) ; 
that  suppliant  pleading  for  liis  servant,  this  for  liis  son ; 
there  by  others,  in  person  here;  the  sickness  there  a 
paralysis,  a  fever  here ;  but  more  decisive  than  all  this, 
the  heart  and  inner  kernel  of  the  two  narratives  is  different. 
That  centm'ion  is  an  example  of  a  strong  faith,  this  noble- 
man of  a  weak  faith  ;  that  centurion  counts  that  if  Jesus 
will  but  speak  the  word,  his  servant  will  be  healed,  while 
this  nobleman  is  so  earnest  that  the  Lord  should  come 
down,  because  in  heart  he  limits  his  power,  and  counts 
that  nothing  but  his  actual  presence  will  avail  to  help  his 
sick ;  that  other  is  praised,  this  rebuked  of  the  Lord.  So 
striking  indeed  are  these  differences,  that  Augustine ' 
compares,  but  for  the  purpose  of  contrasting,  the  faith  of 
that  centurion,  and  the  unbelief  of  this  nobleman.  Bishop 
Hall  does  the  same.  '  How  much  difference,'  he  exclaims, 
'  was  here  betwixt  the  centurion  and  the  ruler  !  That 
came  for  his  servant ;  this  for  his  son.  This  son  was  not 
more  above  the  servant,  than  the  faith  that  sued  for  the 
servant  surpassed  that  which  sued  for  the  son.'  Against 
all  this,  the  points  of  likeness,  and  suggesting  identity, 
are  slight  and  superficial;  as  the  near  death  of  the 
sufferer,  the  healing  at  a  distance  and  by  a  word,  and  the 
returning  and  finding  the  sick  well.  It  is  nothing  strange 
that  two  miracles  should  have  such  circumstances  as  these 
in  common. 

'  In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xvi. :  Videte  distinctionem.  Eegulus  iste  Dominum 
ad  domum  suam  descendere  cupiebat;  ille  centurio  iDdignum  se  esse 
dicebat.  Illi  dicebatur,  Ego  veniam,  et  curabo  eum :  huic  dictum  est, 
Yade,  filius  tuus  vivit.  Illi  prsesentiani  promittebat,  hunc  verbo  sanabat. 
Iste  tamen  prsesentiam  ejus  extorquebat,  ille  se  prtesentia  ejus  indignum 
esse  dicebat.  Hie  cessuni  est  elationi;  illic  concessiun  est  humiiitalL 
Cf.  Chrysostom,  Horn,  xxxv.  w»  Joh. 


J.  THE  FIRST  MIRACULOUS  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES, 
Lttke  V,  1-11. 

THEEE  have  been  in  all  times  those  who  have  deemed 
themselves  bound  to  distinguish  the  incident  here  nar- 
rated from  that  recorded  in  St.  Matthew  (iv.  i8)  and  St. 
Mark  (i.  16-20).  Thus  Augustine*  finds  the  divergences 
in  the  narratives  so  considerable,  that  he  can  only  suppose 
the  event  told  by  St.  Luke  to  have  first  happened ;  our 
Lord  then  predicting  to  Peter  that  hereafter  he  should 
*  catch  men^  but  not  at  that  time  summoning  him  to  enter 
on  the  work ;  he  therefore  with  his  fellows  continuing  for 
a  season  in  their  usual  employments  ;  till  a  little  later,  as 
by  the  two  other  Evangelists  recorded,  they  heard  the 
word  of  command,  '  Follow  Me,'  which  they  then  at  once 
obeyed,  and  attached  themselves  for  ever  to  their  heavenly 
Lord. 

Some  difficulties,  yet  not  very  serious  ones,  in  bringing 
the  two  accounts  to  a  perfect  agreement,  every  one  will 
readily  admit.  But  surely  the  taking  refuge  at  once  and 
whenever  these   occur,   in  the   assumption  that    events 

*  De  Cons.  Evang.  ii,  17:  Unde  datur  locus  intelligere  eos  ex  captura 
piscium  ex  more  remeasse,  ut  postea  fieret  quod  Matthteus  et  Marcus 
nanant.  .  .  .  Tunc  enim  non  subductis  ad  terrain  navibus  tanquam  cura 
redeundi,  sed  ita  eum  secuti  sunt,  tanquam  vocantem  ac  jubentem  ut 
eum  sequerentur.  GresweU  in  the  same  way  (Dissert,  vol.  ii.  Diss.  9) 
earnestly  pleads  for  the  keeping  asunder  of  the  two  narratives.  Yet  any 
one  who  wishes  to  see  how  capable  they  are,  by  the  expenditure  of  a 
little  pains,  of  being  exactly  reconciled,  has  only  to  refer  to  Spanheim's 
Dub.  Evang.  vol.  iii.  p.  337 ;  with  whose  conclusions  Lightfoot  {Hannotig), 
Grotius,  and  Hammond  consent. 


FIRST  MIRACULOUS  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.    135 

almost  similar  to  one  another,  and  with  only  slight  and 
immaterial  variations,  happened  to  the  same  people  two 
or  three  times  over,  is  a  very  questionable  way  of  escape 
from  embarrassments  of  this  kind ;  will  hardly  satisfy  one 
who  honestly  asks  himself  whether  he  would  admit  it  in 
dealing  with  any  other  records.  In  the  extreme  unlikeli- 
hood that  events  should  thus  repeat  themselves  a  far  moi*e 
real  difficulty  is  created,  than  any  which  it  is  thus  hoped 
to  evade.  Let  us  only  keep  in  mind  the  various  aspects, 
various  yet  all  true,  in  which  the  same  incident  will  pre- 
sent itself  from  different  points  of  view  to  different  wit- 
nesses; the  very  few  points  in  a  complex  circumstance 
which  any  narrative  whatever  can  seize,  least  of  all  a 
written  one,  which  in  its  very  nature  is  limited ;  and  we 
shall  not  wonder  that  two  or  three  relators  have  brought 
out  different  moments,  divers  but  diverse,  of  one  and 
the  same  event.  Eather  we  shall  be  grateful  to  that 
providence  of  God,  which  thus  sets  us  oftentimes  not 
merely  in  the  position  of  one  bystander,  but  of  many ; 
which  allows  us  to  regard  the  acts  of  Christ,  every  side  of 
which  is  significant,  from  many  sides ;  to  hear  of  his  dis- 
courses not  merely  so  much  as  one  disciple  took  in  and 
carried  away,  but  also  that  which  sunk  especially  deep  into 
the  heart  and  memory  of  another. 

A  work  professing  to  treat  of  our  Lord's  miracles  ex- 
clusively has  only  directly  to  do  with  the  narrative  of  St. 
Luke,  for  in  that  only  the  miracle  appears.  What  followed 
upon  the  miracle,  the  effectual  calling  of  four  Apostles, 
belongs  to  the  two  parallel  narratives  as  well — St.  Luke's 
excellently  completing  theirs,  and  explaining  to  us  why 
the  Lord,  when  He  bade  these  future  heralds  of  his  grace 
to  follow  Him,  should  clothe  the  promise  which  went  with 
the  command  in  that  especial  shape,  '  I  will  maJce  you 
fishers  of  men.''  These  words  would  anyhow  have  had 
their  fitness,  addressed  to  fishers  whom  He  found  casting 
their  nets,  and,  little  as  they  knew  it,  thus  prophesying  of 


136  THE  FIRST  MIRACULOUS 

their  future  work ; '  but  they  win  a  peculiar  fitness,  when 
He  has  just  shown  them  what  successful  fishers  of  the 
mute  creatures  of  the  sea  He  could  make  them,  if  only 
obedient  to  his  word.  Linking,  as  was  so  often  his  cus- 
tom, the  higher  to  the  lower,  and  setting  forth  that  higher 
in  the  forms  of  the  lower,  He  thereupon  bids  them  to 
exchange  the  humility  of  their  earthly  for  the  dignity  of  a 
heavenly  calling ;  which  yet  He  contemplates  as  a  fishing 
still,  though  not  any  more  of  fishes,  but  of  men ;  whom  at 
his  bidding,  and  under  his  auspices,  they  should  embrace 
not  less  abundantly  in  the  meshes  of  their  spiritual  net. 

But  when  we  compare  John  i.  40-42,  does  it  not  appear 
that  three  out  of  these  four,  Andrew  and  Peter  certainly, 
and  most  probably  John  himself  (ver.  35),  had  been  already 
called  ?  No  doubt  they  had  then,  on  the  banks  of  Jordan, 
been  brought  into  a  transient  fellowship  with  their  future 
Lord ;  but,  after  that  momentary  contact,  had  returned  to 
their  ordinary  occupations,  and  only  at  this  later  period 
attached  themselves  finally  and  fully  to  Him,  henceforth 
followino'  Him  whithersoever  He  went.^  This  miracle  most 
likely  it  was,  as  indeed  seems  intimated  at  ver.  8,  which 
stirred  the  very  depths  of  their  hearts,  giving  them  such 
new  insights  into  the  glory  of  Christ's  person,  as  prepared 
them  to  yield  themselves  without  reserve  to  his  service. 
Everything  here  bears  evidence  that  not  now  for  the  first 
time  He  and  they  have  met.  So  far  from  their  betraying 
no  previous  familiarity,  or  even  acquaintance,  with  the 
Lord,  as  some  have  affirmed,  Peter,  calling  Him  *  Master,'' 
and  saying,  *  Nevertheless  at  thy  word,  I  will  let  down  the 
net,''  implies  that  he  had  already  received  impressions  of 
his  power,  and  of  the   authority  which  went   with   his 

^  And.  Oper.  Imperf,  in  Matth.  Horn.  vi. :  Futurae  dignitatis  gratiam 
artificii  sui  opere  prophetantes.  Augustine  (Serm.  Inedd.,  Serm.  Iviii.): 
Petrus  piscator  non  posuit  retia,  sed  mutavit. 

2  It  is  often  said  that  the  other  was,  vocatio  ad  notitiam  et  familiari- 
tmtem,  or,  ad  fidem ;  this,  ad  apostolatum.  See  the  remarks  of  Scultetus, 
Crit.  Sac.  vol.  vi.  p.  1956. 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  137 

words.  Moreover,  the  two  callings,  a  first  and  on  this  a 
second,  are  quite  in  the  manner  of  that  divine  Teacher, 
who  would  hasten  nothing,  who  was  content  to  leave 
spiritual  processes  to  advance  as  do  natural;  who  could 
bide  his  time,  and  did  not  expect  the  full  corn  in  the  ear 
on  the  same  day  that  He  had  cast  the  seed  into  the  furrow. 
On  that  former  occasion  He  sowed  the  seed  of  his  word  in 
the  hearts  of  Andrew  and  Peter ;  which  having  done.  He 
left  it  to  germinate  ;  till  now  returning  He  found  it  ready 
to  bear  the  ripe  fruits  of  faith.  Not  that  we  need  there- 
fore presume  such  gradual  processes  in  all.  But  as  some 
statues  are  cast  in  a  mould  and  at  an  instant,  others  only 
little  by  little  hewn  and  shaped  and  polished,  as  then* 
material,  metal  or  stone,  demands  the  one  process  or  the 
other,  so  are  there,  to  use  a  memorable  expression  of 
Donne's,  'fusile  Apostles  '  like  St.  Paul,  whom  one  and  the 
same  lightning  flash  from  heaven  at  once  melts  and 
moulds ;  and  others  who  by  a  more  patient  process,  here  a 
little  and  there  a  little,  are  shaped  and  polished  into  that 
perfect  image,  which  the  Lord,  the  great  master-sculptor, 
will  have  them  finally  to  assume. 

^  And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  as  the  people  pressed  upon 
Him  to  hear  the  word  of  God,  He  stood  hy  the  laJce  of 
Gennesaret;  '  by  that  lake  whose  shores  had  been  long  ago 
designated  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  as  a  chief  scene  of  the 
beneficent  activity  of  Messiah  (Isai.  ix.  i,  2) ;  and,  standing 
there.  He  '  saw  two  ships  standing  hy  the  laJce :  hut  the 
fishermen  were  gone  out  of  them,  and  were  washing  their 
nets}     And   He  entered  into   one  of  the  ships,  which  was 

^  It  is  profitably  remarked  by  a  mystic  writer  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
that  this  their  washing  and  repairing  (Matt.  iv.  21)  of  their  nets,  after 
they  had  used  them,  ought  ever  to  be  imitated  by  all  'JlsJiers  of  men,' 
after  they  have  cast  in  their  nets  for  a  draught ;  they  too  should  seek 
carefully  to  purify  and  cleanse  themselves  from  aught  which  in  that  very 
act  they  may  have  gathered  of  sin,  impurities  of  vanity,  of  self-elation, 
or  of  any  other  kind ;  only  so  can  they  hope  effectually  to  use  their  net* 
for  another  draua-ht. 


138  THE  FIRST  MIRACULOUS 

Simon's,  and  prayed  Jdm  that  he  would  thrust  out  a  tittle 
from  the  land.  And  He  sat  down,  and  taugJit  the  people 
out  of  the  ship.  Now  when  He  had  left  speaTcing,  He  said 
unto  Simon,  Launch  out  into  the  deep,  and  let  down  your 
nets '  for  a  draught.  This  He  says,  designing  Himself,  the 
meanwhile,  to  take  the  fisherman  in  his  net.  For  He,  ■who 
by  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  would  confound  the 
wise,  and  by  the  weak  things  of  the  world  would  confound 
the  strong,^  who  meant  to  draw  emperors  to  Himself  by 
fishermen,  and  not  fishermen  by  emperors,  lest  his  Church 
should  even  seem  to  stand  in  the  wisdom  and  power  of 
men  rather  than  of  God — He  saw  in  these  simple  fishermen 
of  the  Galileean  lake  the  aptest  instruments  for  his  work.^ 
'And  Simon  answering  said  unto  Him,  Master,  ive  have 
toiled  all  the  night,*  and  have  taken  nothing  ; '  but,  with  the 
beginnings  of  no  weak  faith  already  working  within  him, 
he  adds,  *  nevertheless,  at  thy  word  I  will  let  down  the  net ' — 
for  these  are  not  the  words  of  one  despairing  of  the  issue ; 
who,  himself  expecting  nothing,  would  yet,  to  satisfy  the 
Master,  and  to  prove  to  Him  the  fruitlessness  of  further 
efforts,  comply  with  his  desire.*     They  are  spoken  rather 

*  Here  Siktvov,  from  the  old  ^^ikhv  (which  re-appears  in  dlaicoc,  a  quoit), 
to  throw;  but  at  Matt.  iv.  18;  Mark  i.  16,  specialized  as  aitrpijiXriarpov 
(=afi<jij3oXii),  a  casting  net,  as  its  derivation  from  dn^jilSaWw  plainly 
shows;  in  Latin,  funda  or  jaculum.  Its  circular  bell-like  shape  adapted 
it  to  the  office  of  a  mosquito  net,  to  which  Herodotus  (ii.  95)  tells  us  the 
Egyptian  fishermen  turned  it;  but  see  Blakesley,  Herodotus  (in  loc);  and 
my  Synonyins  of  the  New  Testmnent,  §  64. 

*  Compare  the  call  of  the  prophet  Amos :  '  I  was  no  prophet,  neither 
was  I  a  prophet's  son,  but  I  was  an  herdman,  and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore 
fruit ;  and  the  Lord  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flock,  and  the  Lord  said  unto 
me,  Go,  prophesy  unto  my  people  Israel'  (vii.  14,  15  ;  cf.  i  Kin.  xix.  19), 

^  See  A  ugustine,  Serm.  ccclxxxi, 

*  See  Lampe  {Comm.  inJoh.  vol.  iii.  p.  727)  for  passages  in  proof;  and 
add  this  from  Pliny  (//.  N.  ix.  213):  Vagantur  gregatim  fere  cuj usque 
generis  squamosi.  Capiuntur  ante  solis  ortum :  turn  maxime  piscium 
fallitur  visus.  Noctibus.  quies:  et  illustribus  peque,  quara  die,  cernunt. 
Aiunt  et  si  teratur  gurges,  interesse  capturse :  itaque  plures  secundo 
tractu  capi,  quam  primo. 

"  Maldonatus:  Non  desperatione  felicioris  jactus  hoc  dicit  Petrus,  aut 
quod  Christo  vel  non  credat,  vel  obedire  nolit :  sed  potius  ut  majorem  in 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  139 

m  the  spirit  of  the  Psalmist :  '  Except  the  Lord  build  the 
house,  they  labour  in  vain  that  build  it :  except  the  Lord 
keep  the  city,  the  watchman  waketh  but  in  vain '  (Ps. 
cxxvii.  i) ;  as  one  who  would  say, '  We  have  accomplished 
nothing  during  all  the  night,  and  had  quite  lost  hope  of 
accomplishing  anything ;  but  now,  when  Thou  biddest,  we 
are  sure  our  labour  will  not  any  longer  be  in  vain.'  And 
his  act  of  faith  is  abundantly  rewarded ;  '  And  when  they 
had  this  done,  they  enclosed  a  great  multitude  of  fishes,''  so 
many  indeed,  that  '  their  net  hraJce,^  and  they  hecJconed  to 
their  partners  in  the  other  ship,  that  they  should  come  and 
help  them.' 

It  was  not  merely  that  Christ  by  his  omniscience  hieiv 
that  now  there  were  fishes  in  that  spot.  We- may  not  thus 
extenuate  the  miracle..  Rather  we  behold  in  Him  here 
the  Lord  of  nature,  able,  by  the  secret  yet  mighty  magic 
of  his  will,  to  guide  and  draw  the  unconscious  creatures, 
and  make  them  minister  to  the  higher  interests,  of  his 
kingdom ;  we  recognize  in  Him  the  ideal  man,  the  second 
Adam,  in  whom  are  fulfilled  the  words  of  the  Psalmist : 
*  Thou  madest  Him  to  have  dominion  over  the  works  of 
thy  hands ;  Thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet,  .  .  . 
the  fowl  of  the  air,  atid  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  whatsoever 
passeth  through  the  paths  of  the  sea*  (Ps.  viii.  6,  8).  Of  aU 
this  dominion  bestowed  on  man  at  the  first,  no  part 
perhaps  has  so  entirely  escaped  him  as  that  over  the  finny 
tribes  in  the  sea;  but  He  who  'was  with  the  wild  beasts' 
in  the  wilderness  (Mark  i.  13),  who  gave  to  his  disciples 
power  to  'take  up  serpents  '  (Mark  xvi.  18),  declared  here 
that  the  fishes  of  the  sea  no  less  than  the  beasts  of  the 
earth  were  obedient  to  his  will.     Yet  since  the  power  by 

Christo  fidem  declaret ;  quod  cum  tota  nocte  laborantes  nihil  prehendisset, 
tamen  ejus  confidens  verbis,  iterum  retia  laxaret. 

^  On  the  nets  breaking  now,  and  not  breaking,  as  it  is  expressly  said 
they  did  not,  on  occasion  of  the  second  miraculous  draught  of  fishea 
(John  xxi.  1 1),  and  the  mystical  meaning  which  has  been  found  in  this, 
I  would  refer  the  reader  to  what  there  will  be  said. 

10 


140  THE   FIRST  MIRACULOUS 

wliicli  He  drew  tliem  tlien  is  the  same  tliat  guides  ever- 
more their  periodic  migrations,  which,  marvellous  as  it  is, 
we  yet  cannot  call  miraculous,  there  is  plainly  something 
that  differences  this  miracle,  with  another  of  like  kind 
(John  xxi.  6),  and  that  of  the  stater  in  the  fish's  mouth 
(Matt.  xvii.  27),  from  Christ's  other  miracles; — in  that 
these  three  are  not  comings  in  of  a  new  and  hitherto  un- 
wonted power  into  the  region  of  nature  ;  but  coincidences, 
divinely  brought  about,  between  words  of  Christ  and  facts 
in  that  natural  world.  An  immense  haul  of  fishes,  a  piece 
of  money  in  the  mouth  of  one,  are  in  themselves  no 
miracles  ;  ^  but  the  miracle  lies  in  the  falling  in  of  these 
with  a  word  of  Christ's,  which  has  pledged  itself  to  this 
coincidence  beforehand.  The  natural  is  lifted  up  into  the 
domain  of  the  miraculous  by  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
timed,  and  the  ends  which  it  is  made  to  serve.'^ 

'And  they  came,  and  filled  both  the  ships,  so  that  they 
began  to  sinh.'^  It  was  a  moment  of  fear,  not  indeed 
because  their  ships  were  thus  overloaded  and  sinking; 
but  rather  that  now  through  this  sign  there  was  revealed 
to  them  something  in  the  Lord,  which  before  they  had  not 
apprehended,  and  which  filled  them  with  astonishment 
and  awe.  Peter,  as  so  often,  is  the  spokesman  for  all. 
He,  while  drawing  the  multitude  of  fishes  into  his  net, 
has  himself  fallen  into  the  net  of  Christ ;  *  taking  a  prey, 

^  Thus  Yarrell  (Hist,  of  British  Fishes,  vol.  i.  p.  125):  'At  Brighton 
in  June  1808,  the  shoal  of  mackerel  was  so  great,  that  one  of  the  boats 
had  the  meshes  of  her  nets  so  completely  occupied  by  them  that  it  was 
impossible  to  drag  them  in.  The  fish  and  nets  therefore  in  the  end  sunk 
together.' 

*  See  page  13. 

'  HvQiCtaQai.  The  word  occurs  once  besides  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  then  in  a  tropical  sense  (1  Tim.  vi.  9). 

*  The  author  of  a  striking  sermon,  numbered  ccv.  in  the  Benedictine 
Appendix  to  St.  Augustine ;  Dum  insidiatur  Petrus  gregibus  asquoris, 
ipse  in  retia  incidit  Salvatoris.  Fit  de  prEedone  praeda,  de  piscatore 
piscatio,  de  pirata  captivitas.  —  'Admire,'  exclaims  Chrysostom,  'the 
dispensation  of  the  Lord,  how  He  draws  each  by  the  art  which  is  most 
familiar  and  natural  to  him — as  the  INlagians  by  a  star,  so  the  fishermen 
by  fish' — a  thought  which  Donne  in  a  sermon  on  this  text  enlarges  thus: 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  141 

he  has  himself  also  been  taken  a  prey;  and  the  same  man 
now  as  after,  yielding  as  freely  to  the  impulses  of  the 
moment,  with  the  beginnings  of  the  same  quick  spiritual 
insight  out  of  which  he  was  the  first  to  recognize  in  his 
Lord  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  and  to  confess  to  Him  as 
such  (Matt.  xvi.  16),  can  no  longer,  in  the  deep  feeling  of 
his  own  unholiness,  endure  a  Holy  One  so  near.  He  ^fell 
down  at  Jesus'  hiees,  saying.  Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a 
sinful  man,  0  Lord.  For  he  was  astonished,  and  all  that 
tvere  ivith  Mtii,  at  the  draught  of  the  fishes  ivhich  they  had 
taken.'  At  moments  like  these  all  that  is  merely  conven- 
tional is  swept  away,  and  the  deep  heart  utters  itself,  and 
the  deepest  things  that  are  there  come  forth  to  the  light. 
And  the  deepest  thing  in  man's  heart  under  the  law  is 
this  sense  of  God's  holiness  as  something  bringing  death 
and  destruction  to  the  unholy  creature.  *  Let  not  God 
speak  with  us,  lest  we  die;'  this  was  the  voice  of  the 
people  to  Moses,  as  'they  removed  and  stood  afar  off' 
(Exod.  XX.  18,  19).  'We  shall  surely  die,  because  we 
have  seen  God'  (Judg.  xiii.  22  ;  cf.  vi.  22,  23;  Dan.  x.  17; 
Isai.  vi.  5  ;  i  Chron.  xxi.  20).  Below  this  is  the  utterly 
profane  state,  in  which  there  is  no  contradiction  felt 
between  the  holy  and  the  unholy,  between  God  and  the 
sinner.  Above  it  is  the  state  of  grace  ;  in  which  all  the 
contradiction  is  felt,  God  is  stiU  a  consuming  fire,  yet  not 
any  more  for  the  sinner,  but  only  for  the  sin.  It  is  still 
felt,  felt  far  more  strongly  than  ever,  how  j)rofound  a  gulf 

'  The  Holy  Ghost  speaks  in  such  forms  and  such  phrases  as  may  most 
work  upon  them  to  whom  He  speaks.  Of  David,  that  was  a  shepherd 
before,  God  says,  He  took  him  to  feed  his  people.  To  those  Magi  of  the 
East,  who  were  given  to  the  study  of  the  stars,  God  gave  a  star  to  be 
their  guide  to  Christ  at  Bethlehem.  To  those  who  followed  Him  to 
Capernaum  for  meat,  Christ  took  occasion  by  that  to  preach  to  them  of 
the  spiritual  food  of  their  souls.  To  the  Samaritan  woman  whom  He 
found  at  the  well,  He  preached  of  the  water  of  life.  To  these  men  in 
our  text,  accustomed  to  a  joy  and  gladness  when  they  took  great  or 
great  store  of  fish,  He  presents  his  comforts  agreeably  to  their  taste, 
they  should  be  fishers  still.  Christ  makes  heaven  all  things  to  all  men, 
that  He  might  gain  all.' 


142  THE  FIRST  MIRACULOUS 

separates  between  sinful  man  and  a  lioly  God ;  but  felt  no 
less  that  this  gulf  has  been  bridged  over,  that  the  two  can 
taeet,  that  in  One  who  shares  with  both  they  have  already 
met.  For  his  presence  is  the  presence  of  God,  but  of  God 
with  his  glory  veiled;  whose  nearness  therefore  even  sinful 
men  may  endure,  and  in  that  nearness  may  little  by  little 
be  prepared  for  the  glorious  consummation,  the  open 
vision  of  the  face  of  God ;  for  this  which  would  be  death 
to  the  mere  sinner,  will  be  highest  blessedness  to  him  who 
had  been  trained  for  it  by  beholding  for  a  while  the 
mitigated  splendours  of  the  Incarnate  Word. 

It  would  indeed  have  fared  ill  with  Peter,  had  Christ 
taken  him  at  his  word,  and  departed  from  Mm,  as  He 
departed  from  others  who  made  the  same  request  (Matt. 
viii.  34;  ix.  i ;  cf.  Job  xxii.  17),  but  who  made  it  in  quite 
a  different  spirit  from  his.  If  Peter  he  this  '  sinful  man,' 
there  is  the  more  need  that  Christ  should  be  near  him; 
and  this  He  implicitly  announces  to  him  that  He  will  be. 
And  first  He  re-assures  him  with  that  comfortable  '  Fear 
not,''  that  assurance  that  He  is  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to 
save,  which  He  had  need  to  speak  so  often  to  the  trembling 
and  sin-convinced  hearts  of  his  servants  (John  vi.  20; 
Matt,  xxviii.  5,  10;  Luke  xxiv.  8;  Eev.  i.  17).  And  that 
Peter  may  have  less  cause  to  fear,  Christ  announces  to 
him  the  mission  and  the  task  which  He  has  for  him  in 
store :  '  From  henceforth  thou  shall  catch  men.'  In  these 
words  is  the  inauguration  of  Peter,  and  with  him  of 
his  fellov/s,  to  the  work  of  their  apostleship.  Such  an 
inauguration,  not  formal,  nor  always  in  its  outward  acci- 
dents the  same, — on  the  contrary,  in  these  displaying  an 
infinite  richness  and  variety,  such  as  reigns  alike  in  the 
kingdoms  of  nature  and  of  grace,— is  seldom  absent,  when 
God  calls  any  man  to  a  great  work  in  his  kingdom.  But 
Infinitely  various  in  outer  circumstances,  in  essence  it  is 
always  one  and  the  same.  God  manifests  Himself  to  his 
future  prophet,  or  Apostle,  or  other  messenger,  as  He  had 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  143 

never  done  before;  and  in  tlie  light  of  this  manifestation 
the  man  recognizes  his  own  weakness  and  insufficiency 
and  guilt,  as  he  had  never  done  before.  He  exclaims,  '  I 
am  slow  of  speech  and  of  a  slow  tongue,*  or  *  I  cannot 
speak,  for  I  am  a  child,'  or  *  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,' 
or  as  here,  *  I  am  a  sinful  man ; '  falls  on  his  face,  sets  his 
mouth,  in  the  dust  takes  the  shoes  from  off  his  feet;  and 
then  out  of  the  depth  of  this  humiliation  rises  up  another 
man,  an  instrument  fitted  for  the  work  of  God,  such  as  he 
would  have  never  been,  if  his  own  earthly  had  not  thus 
paled  before  God's  heavenly;  if  the  garish  sun  of  this 
world  had  not  thus  set  in  him,  that  the  pure  stars  of 
the  higher  world  might  shine  out  upon  him.  The  true 
parallels  to  this  passage,  contemplated  as  such  an  inaugura- 
tion as  this,  are  Exod.  iv.  10-17;  ^^^i*  vi.;  Jer.  i.  4-10; 
Ezek.  i.-iii.;  Judg.  vi.  11-23;  ^^ts  ix.  3-9;  Dan.  x.;  Eev. 
i.  13-20. 

'From  henceforth  thou  shalt  catch  men.*  The  Lord 
clothes  his  promise  in  the  language  of  that  art  which  was 
familiar  to  Peter;  the  fisherman  is  to  caich  men,  as  David, 
taken  from  among  the  sheep-folds,  was  to  feed  them '  (Ps. 
Ixxviii.  71,  72).  There  is  here  a  double  magnifying  of 
Peter's  future  occupation  as  compared  with  his  past.^     It 

^  Origea  finds  in  St.  Paul's  handicraft  a  like  prophecy  of  his  future 
vocation.  The  tent-maker  shall  become  the  maker  of  everlasting  taber- 
nacles (In  Num.  Horn,  xvii.) :  Unde  mihi  videtur  non  fortuito  contigisse 
ut  Petrus  quidem  et  Andreas  et  iilii  Zebedoei,  arte  piscatores  inveuirentur, 
Paulus  vero  arte  faber  tabernaculorum.  Et  quia  illi  vocati  ab  arte 
capiendorum  piscium,  mutantur  et  fiunt  piscatores  hominum,  dicente 
Domino;  Venite  post  me,  et  faciara  vos  piscatores  hominum:  non  dubium 
quin  et  Paulus,  quia  et  ipse  per  Domiuum  nostrum  Jesum  Christum 
vocatus  apostolus  est,  simili  artis  suae  transformatione  mutatussit:  ut' 
eicut  illi  ex  piscatoribus  piscium,  piscatores  hominum  facti  sunt,  ita  et 
iste  a  faciendis  tabernaculis  terrenis,  ad  ccelestia  tabernacula  construeuda 
tralatus  sit.  Constvuit  enim  coelestia  tabernacula  docens  unumquemque 
viam  salutis,  et  beatorum  in  coelestibus  mansionum  iter  ostendens. 
*  So  in  the  Christian  hymn : 

Te  piscantem  Piscatoris  Cuncta  linquis,  nave  spreta, 

A  d  capturse  melioris  Temporalis  mundi  meta 

Usum  traxit  gratia.  Judices  ut  omnia. 


144  THE  FIRST  MIRACULOUS 

is  men  and  not  poor  fishes  wliich  hencefortli  he  shall  take; 
and  he  shall  take  them  for  life,  and  not,  as  he  had  hitherto 
taken  his  meaner  prey,  only  for  death.  So  much  is 
involved  in  the  word  of  the  original,^  which  thus  turns  of 
itself  the  edge  of  Julian's  malignant  sneer,-  who  observed 
that  '  the  Galilsean '  did  indeed  most  aptly  term  his  Apos- 
tles 'fishers;'  for  as  the  fisherman  draws  out  his  prey  from 
the  waters  where  they  were  free  and  happy,  to  an  element 
in  which  they  cannot  breathe,  but  must  presently  expire, 
even  so  did  these.^  But  the  word  employed — and  we 
must  presume  that  it  found  its  equivalent  in  the  Aramaic 
■ — does  with  a  singular  felicity  anticipate  and  exclude 
such  a  turn.  Peter  shall  take  men,  and  take  them  for 
life,  not  for  death ;  quite  another  catching  of  men  from 
that  denounced  by  the  j^rophet  Jeremiah  (v.  26)  and  by 

'  Zioypei'iir,  from  ^woc  and  ayptvto,  to  take  alive  (Nuni,  xxxi.  15  ;  Deut. 
XX.  16 ;  Josh.  ii.  13,  LXX);  and  Jwype/o,  the  prey  which  is  saved  alive 
(Num.  xxi.  35  ;  Deut.  ii.  24).  Cf.  Homer,  //.  Z,  46,  where  one  pleading 
for  his  life  exclaims, 

'Lotypti,  'Arp'soQ  I'if,  rrv  o'  aS,ia  Si^ai  axoij'a. 

It  appears  as  if  the  old  Italic  Version  took  Kwyp'no  in  its  other  derivation 
(from  Zm{]  and  aytipto),  for  we  find  the  passage  quoted  by  St.  Ambrose 
and  other  early  Fathers,  Eris  vivijicans  homines ;  but  the  Vulgate  more 
correctly.  Homines  eris  capiens.     See  Siiicer,  Thes.  s.  v.  Ztoypew. 

^  His  words  are   quoted  by  Theophanes  (Ho?n.  v.):    ZiDi)  fiiv   roli: 

irvOpoiQ  TO  vSmp,  BciraroQ  St  o  <ii]p'  t'l  Si)  tovto  laTiv  ciKijBtc,  o'l  finO)]Tai  aua 
Tou  'lt](Tov  Toi'Q  ai'OpoJTToiit;  ayp(vovT(^  Sia  tov  Krjpvyi-iaToc,  tij  anuiXdqi  Kal  ri^ 
Quvaro),  WQ  rovg  txOvac,  —apaCiSoacrt.  See  Suicer,  TTieS,  S.  V.  aXifrg.  Origen 
supposes  (Con,  Cels.  i.  62),  that  out  of  a  confused  remembrance  of  this 
passage  Celsus  styled  the  Apostles  'publicans  and  sailors'  (rnv-at:).  But 
this  inexactness  is  of  a  piece  with  his  ignorance  of  the  number  of  the 
Apostles  (he  speaks  of  them  as  ten),  an  ignorance  singular  enough  in 
one  who  undertook  a  formal  refutation  of  Christianity. 

'  In  one  aspect  indeed  the  death  of  the  fish,  which  follows  on  its  with- 
drawal from  the  waters,  finds  its  analogy  in  the  higher  spiritual  world. 
The  man,  drawn  forth  by  these  Gospel  nets  from  the  'worldly  sinful 
element  in  which  before  he  lived  and  moved,  does  die  to  sin ;  but  only 
that  by  this  death  he  may  rise  to  a  higher  life  in  Christ.  Origen  {Horn. 
XVI.  tn  JeremJ):  'EKni'oi  ot  Ix^^'tt;  ol  d\(>yoi  dpeXOofreg  ti>  rent,  aayiivaiQ 
d-iroPvl/riKovoi  Bdi'aTciv,  oi^X'  Siadf\oi^ifrr]g  ^(oj/v  Tov  Bdyarop'  6  Si  ovWi]^(iiiQ 
vnb  tCj}>  d\u(ov  'ItjTov,  Kui  diftXOMV  dirb  rTjg  6a\da<Tr}Q,  Kai  avroQ  /ilv  fiffo- 
6vr)rTKU,  aTTuOii'itTKH  St  Ti^}  Knn^(^y  drrof^viiTKH  Ty  d^iapTi(j(,  Kal  fitra  to  aTToOnvtiv 
Till  Koofiifi  Ka'i  ry  djiaprii^,  ^(jjoTrouirai  i'Trb  tov  \6yov  tov  Qiov^Kal  dvaXaniSdvii 
dWrjv  K'^fiv, 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  145 

Habakkuk  (i.  14,  15).  Those  that  were  wandering,  rest- 
less and  at  random,  through  the  deep  unquiet  waters  of 
the  world,  the  smaller  falling  a  prey  to  the  greater,'  and 
all  with  the  weary  sense  as  of  a  vast  prison,  he  shall 
embrace  within  the  safe  folds  and  recesses  of  the  same 
Gospel  net ; '  which  if  they  break  not  through,  nor  leap 
over,  tlicy  shall  at  length  be  drawn  up  to  shore,  out  of  the 
dark  gloomy  waters  into  the  bright  clear  light  of  day, 
that  so  they  may  be  gathered  into  vessels  for  eternal  life 
(Matt.  xiii.  48). 

^  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  Ixiv.  6) :  Mare  eniui  in  figuni  dicitur  secu- 
lum  hoc,  falsitate  amarum,  procellis  turbulentum :  ubi  homines  cupidi- 
tatibus  perversis  et  pravis  facti  sunt  velut  pisces  invicem  se  devorantes. 
Ambrose :  Et  bene  apostolica  instruraenta  piscandi  retia  sunt ;  quae  non 
captos  perimunt,  sed  reservant,  et  de  profundo  ad  lumen  extrahunt,  et 
fiuctuautes  de  infernis  ad  superna  perducunt. 

*  Augustine  (Sertn.  Inedd.  Serm.  lix.):  Nam  sicut  rete  quos  continet 
vagari  nou  patitur,  ita  et  fides  errare,  quos  colligit,  non  permittit :  et 
sicut  ibi  captos  sinu  quodam  perducit  ad  navim,  ita  et  hie  congxegatos 
gremio  quodam  deducit  ad  requiem.  Yet  this  title  of  '  fishers'  itself  also 
fails  to  set  out  the  tchole  character  of  the  Christian  ministry';  sets  out 
only  two  moments  of  it  in  any  strength,  the  first  and  the  last, — the 
Church's  missionary  activity,  as  the  enclosing  within  the  net,  and  the 
bringing  safely  to  the  final  kingdom,  as  the  landing  the  contents  of 
the  net  upon  the  shore  (Matt.  xiii.  48),  All  which  is  between  it  leaves 
unexpressed,  and  yields  therefore  in  fitness,  as  in  frequency  of  use,  to  the 
image  borrowed  from  the  work  of  the  shepherd;  has  given  us  no  such 
names  as  ' pastor 'sind  'flock'  to  enrich  our  Christian  language.  That 
of  'shepherd'  expresses  all  which  'fisher'  leaves  out,  the  habitual  daily 
care  for  the  members  of  Christ,  the  peculhan,  after  they  have  been 
brcmght  into  the  fellowship  of  the  Church.  It  was,  therefore,  fitly  said 
to  Peter,  ^Thou  shall  catch  7nen,'  before  it  was  said,  'Feed  my  sheep;' 
and  each  time  though  not  a  different  commission,  yet  a  difi'ereut  side  of 
tiie  commission,  is  intended ;  he  shall  be  both  evangelist  and  pastor. 
.Jeremy  Taylor  gives  the  matter  a  slightly  diff'erent  turn:  'In  the  days  of 
the  patriarchs,  the  governors  of  the  Lord's  people  were  called  shepherds. 
In  the  days  of  the  Gospel  they  are  shepherds  still,  but  with  the  addition 
of  a  new  appellative,  for  now  they  are  called  fishers.  Both  the  callings 
were  honest,  humble,  and  laborious,  watchful  and  full  of  trouble,  but  now 
that  both  the  titles  are  conjunct,  we  may  observe  the  symbol  of  an 
implicit  and  folded  duty.  There  is  much  simplicity  and  care  in  the 
ehepheid's  trade ;  there  is  much  craft  and  labour  in  the  fisher's,  and  a 
prelate  is  to  be  both  full  of  piety  to  his  flock,  careful  of  their  welfare,  and 
•also  to  be  discreet  and  wary,  observant  of  advantages,  laying  such  baits 
for  the  people  as  may  entice  them  into  the  nets  of  Jesus's  discipline.' 


146  THE  FIRST  MIRACULOUS 

It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  promise  here  clothes 
itself  in  language  drawn  from  the  occupation  of  the  fisher, 
rather,  for  instance,  than  in  that  borrowed  from  the 
nearly  allied  pursuits  of  the  hunter.  The  fisher  more 
often  takes  his  prey  alive ;  he  draws  it  to  him,  does  not 
drive  it  from  him ; '  and  not  merely  to  himself,  but  draws 
all  which  he  has  taken  to  one  another;  even  as  the  Church 
brings  tosether  the  divided  hearts,  the  fathers  to  the 
children,  gathers  into  one  fellowship  the  scattered  tribes 
of  men.  Again,  the  work  of  the  fisher  is  one  of  art  and 
skill,  not  of  force  and  violence;^  so  that  TertuUian'  finds 

^  S'panheim  (Dub.  Evang.  vol.  iii.  p.  350):  Non  r<?Ha^o;*es  Dominus 
vocatos  voliiit,  sed  piscatores,  noa  homines  abigentes  a  se  prfedara,  sed 
colligentes.  Yet  the  image  still  remains,  even  in  the  New  Testament, 
open  to  an  opposite  use  ;  thus  in  the  t^t^Kofifvog  Kai  oiXinZoi^iyog  of  Jam.  i. 
14  are  allusions  to  the  fish  drawn  from  its  safe  hiding  places,  and  enticed 
by  the  tempting  bait  (ofXfn/')  to  its  destruction:  cf.  Ezek.  xxix.  4,  7. 

*  So  Ovid  (Halieut.):  Noster  in  arte  labor  positus :  cf.  2  Cor.  xii.  16: 
inrapxuji'  wavoipyoc,  CoXiij  vftaQ  tXajSov.  And  Augustine  (De  Util.  Jejim. 
ix.):  Quare  Apostoli  neminem  coegerunt,  neminem  impulerunt?  Quia 
piscator  est,  ratia  mittit  in  mare,  quod  incurrerit,  trahit.  Venator  autem 
Bilvas  cingit,  sentes  excutit ;  terroribus  undique  multiplicatis  cogit  in  retia. 
Ne  hac  eat,  ne  illic  eat :  hide  occurre,  inde  Cfede,  inde  terre ;  non  exeat, 
non  effugiat.  Thus  hunting  is  most  often  an  imago  used  in  innlam  partem 
(Ps.  x.  9  ;  XXXV.  7).  Nimrod  is  '  a  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord '  (Gen. 
X.  9),  where  to  imagine  any  other  hunting  but  a  tyrannous  driving  of 
men  before  him  is  idle ;  as  Augustine  rightly  (De  Civ.  Dei,  xvi.  4):  Quid 
significatur  hoc  nomine  quod  est  venator,  nisi  animalium  terrigenarum 
deceptor,  oppressor,  extinctor  ?  Luther,  in  his  Letters,  speaks  of  a  hunting 
party  at  which  he  was  present:  'Much  it  pitied  me  to  think  of  the  mystery 
and  emblems  which  lieth  beneath  it.  For  what  does  this  symbol  signify, 
but  that  the  Devil,  through  his  godless  huntsmen  and  dogs,  the  bishops 
and  theologians  to  wit,  doth  privily  chase  and  snatch  the  innocent  poor 
little  beasts?  Ah,  the  simple  and  credulous  souls  came  thereby  far  too 
plain  before  my  eyes.'  Yet  it  is  characteristic  that  the  hunting,  in  which 
is  the  greatest  coming  out  of  power,  should  of  men  be  regarded  as  the 
nobler  occupation;  thus  Plato  (De  Legg.  vii.  p.  823  e;  cf.  Plutarch,  De 
Sol.  Anim.  9)  approves  it,  while  tishing  he  would  forbid  us  an  apyoQ  Gljfja 
and  tpujQ  ov  rr(p,jSpa  t\evOfpiog  (Becker,  Charides,  vol.  i.  p.  437). 

'  Adv.  Marc.  iv.  9 :  De  tot  generibus  operum  quid  utique  ad  pisca- 
turam  respexit  ut  ab  ilia  in  Apostolos  sumeret  Simonem  et  filios  Zebedsei? 
Non  enim  simplex  factum  videri  potest,  de  quo  argumentum  processuruni 
erat,  dicens  Petro  trepidanti  de  copiosa  indagine  piscium  :  Ne  time,  abhinc 
enim  homines  eris  capiens.  Hoc  enim  dicto,  intellectum  illis  suggerebat 
adimpietao  prophetiije;  se  eum  esse  qui  per  Hieremiam  pronuntiaiat,  Ecce 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  147 

in  tliis  miracle  a  commencing  fulfilment  of  Jer.  xvi.  16, 
*  Behold,  I  will  send  for  many  fishers,  saitli  tlie  Lord,  and 
they  shall  fish  them.'  Those  words,  it  is  true,  are  rather 
a  threat  than  a  promise.  It  is,  however,  quite  in  the 
spirit  of  the  New  Covenant  to  fulfil  a  threatening  of  the 
Old,  yet  so  to  transform  in  the  fulfilling,  that  it  wears  a 
wholly  different  character  from  that  which  it  wore  when 
first  uttered.  There  is  now  a  captivity  which  is  blessed, 
blessed  because  it  is  deliverance  from  a  freedom  which  is 
full  of  woe, — a  '  being  made  free  from  sin  and  becoming 
servants  to  God,'  that  so  we  may  have  cur  '  fruit  unto 
holiness,  and  the  end  everlasting  life'  (Eom.  vi.  22).  But 
the  promise  here  might  be  brought  with  more  unques- 
tionable propriety  into  relation  with  Ezek.  xlvii.  9,  10,  and 
the  prophecy  there  of  the  fishers  that  should  stand  on 
Engedi,  and  of  the  great  multitude  of  fish  with  which  the 
healed  waters  should  abound.' 

But  if  Christ's  Evangelists  are  as  fishers,  those  whom  they 
draw  to  Him  are  as  fish.  This  image,  so  great  a  favourite 
in  the  early  Church,  probably  did  not  find  its  first  motive 
in  this  saying  of  our  Lord ;  but  rather  in  the  fact  that 
through  the  waters  of  baptism  men  are  first  quickened,'^ 
and  only  live  as  they  abide  in  that  quickening  element 
into  which  they  were  then  brought.  The  two  images 
indeed  cannot  stand  together,  mutually  excluding  as  they 
do  one  another ;   for  in  one  the  blessedness  is  to  remain 

ego  mittam  piscatores  multos,  et  piscabuntur  illos.  Deuique  relictis 
naviculis  sequuti  sunt  eura  ;  ipsura  intelligentes,  qui  coeperat  facere  quod 
edixerat.     Cf.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  in  Cramer's  Cate^ia. 

'  Theodoret  gives  rightly  the  meaning  of  the  passage ;  A'tyn  Ix9vmv 

TrXfjjOEf  TovTo  ytriiatuUai  to  vSujp'  Kai  (iXitaQ  'i'^iiv  TToWojit;'  ttoWoi  yup  o'l  lia 
Tuiv  vcdrwv  Tovrwi/  elg  awnipiav  Giiptoj-itvoif  noWol  ci  kciI  oi  r>)i'  aypap 
Tavrrfv  Oijrttvuv  TmnaTtvfj'ivoi. 

"  Tertullian  (De  Bapt.  i.):  Sed  nos  pisciculi  secundum  l\Ovv  nof^tium 
Jesum  Christum  in  aqua  nascimur;  nee  aliter  quam  in  aqua  permanendo 
ealvi  sumus.  And  Chrysostom  on  these  words,  *  I  will  make  you  fishers 
of  men,'  exclaims,  '  Truly,  a  new  method  of  fishing !  for  the  tishers  draw 
out  the  fishes  from  the  waters,  and  kill  those  that  they  have  ta-ken.  But 
we  fling  into  the  waters,  and  those  that  are  taken  are  made  alive.' 


14^  THE  FIE  ST  MIRACULOUS 

in  the  waters,  as  in  the  vivifying  element,  in  the  other  to 
be  drawn  forth  from  them  into  the  purer  and  clearer  air. 
In  one  Christ  is  the  Fish,^  in  the  other  the  chief  Fisher- 
man. As  being  Himself  this  great  '  Fisher  of  men '  He  is 
addressed  in  that  grand  Orphic  hymn  attributed  to  the 
Alexandrian  Clement,  in  words  which  may  thus  be  trans- 

b.ted : 

'  Fisher  of  mortal  men, 
Tliem  that  the  saved  are, 
Ever  the  holy  fish 
Fi'om  the  wild  ocean 
Of  the  world's  sea  of  sin 
Ey  thy  sweet  life  Thou  enticest  away.' 

*  And  when  they  had  brought  their  ships  to  land,  they  for- 
sook all,  and  followed  Him,'  or,  as  St.  Mark  has  it,  '  left 
their  father  Zebedee  in  the  ship  with  the  hired  servants,  and 
followed  Him.'^  But  what,  some  ask,  was  that  'all'  which 
'they  forsuoh,'  that  they  should  afterwards  magnify  it  so 
much,  saying,  '  Behold,  we  have  forsaJcen  all,  and  followed 
Thee  :  what  shall  we  have  therefore '  (Matt.  xix.  27)  ? 
Whatever  it  was,  it  was  their  all,  and  therefore,  though 
no  more  than  a  few  poor  boats  and  nets,  it  was  much ;  for 
love  to  a  miserable  hovel  may  hold  one  with  bands  as  hard 
to  be  broken  as  bind  another  to  a  sumptuous  palace ; 
seeing  it  is  the  worldly  affection  which  holds,  and  not  the 
world ;  and  the  essence  of  the  renunciation  lies  not  in  the 

'  Augustine  (De  Civ.  Dei,  xviii.  23),  giving  the  well-known  Greek 
anagram  of  ixevs,  adds:  In  quo  nomine  mystice  intelligitur  Christus, 
eo  quod  in  hujus  mortalitatis  abysso,  velut  in  aquarum  profunditate  vivus, 
hoc  est,  sine  peccato  esse  potuerit.  In  the  chasing  away  of  the  evil 
spirit  by  the  fish's  gall  (Tob.  viii.  z,  3),  a  type  was  often  found  in  the 
early  Church,  of  the  manner  in  which,  when  Christ  is  near,  the  works  of 
the  devil  are  destroyed.  Thus  Prosper  of  Aquitaine :  Christus  .... 
piscis  in  sua  passione  decoctus,  cujus  ex  interioribus  remediis  quotidie 
illuminamur  et  pasciniur. 

*  Crrtshaw  (Stejjs  to  the  Temple)  has  a  neat  and  serious  epigram  here : 

'  Thou  hast  the  firt  on't,  Peter,  and  canst  tell 
To  cast  thy  nets  on  all  occasions  well. 
\Vlien  (;!hrist  calls,  and  thy  nets  would  have  thee  stay, 
'lo  cast  them  well 's  to  cast  them  quite  away.' 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  149 

more  or  less  wliich  is  renounced,  but  in  the  sj^irit  in 
whicli  the  renunciation  is  earned  out.  These  Apostles 
might  have  left  little,  when  they  left  their  possessions ;  but 
they  left  much,  and  had  a  right  to  feel  that  they  had  left 
much,  when  they  left  their  cZes ires;  ^  since  eithei  for  ricli 
man  or  for  poor  what  is  the  limit  of  desires  ? 

A  word  or  two  may  fitly  find  place  here  upon  the 
symbolic  acts  of  our  Lord,  whereof,  according  to  his  own 
distinct  assurance,  we  here  have  one.  The  desire  of  the 
human  mind  to  embody  tbe  trutb  wbicb  it  strongly  feels 
and  greatly  yearns  to  communicate  to  others,  in  acts 
rather  than  by  words,  or  it  mp,y  be  by  blended  act  and 
word,  has  a  very  deep  root  in  our  nature,  which  always 
strives  after  the  concrete  ;  and  it  manifests  itself  not 
merely  in  the  institution  of  fixed  symbolic  acts,  as  the 
anointing  of  kings,  the  delivery  of  a  sod,  the  breaking  of 
a  cake  at  the  old  Roman  marriages,  the  giving  and 
receiving  of  a  ring  at  our  own  (cf.  Euth  iv.  7,  8) ;  but  more 
strikingly  yet,  in  acts  that  are  the  free  products  at  the 
moment  of  some  creative  mind,  which  has  more  to  utter 
than  it  can  find  words  to  be  the  bearers  of,  or  would  utter 
it  in  a  manner  more  expressive  and  emphatic  than  these 
permit.  This  kind  of  te;xhing,  however  frequent  in 
Scripture  (i  Kin.  ii.  30,  31;  xxii.  ii;^  Isai.  xx.  3,  4; 
Jer.  li.  63,  64;  John  xxi.  19-22;  Acts  xiii.  51),  pertains 
not  to  it  alone,  nor  is  it  even  peculiar  to  the  East,  although 
there  most  entirely  at  home ;  but  everywhere,  as  men  have 

^  Augustine  (Enarr.  iii.  in  Ps.  ciii.  1 7)  :  Multum  dimisit,  fratres  mei, 
multuui  dimisit,  qui  non  solum  dimisit  quidquid  habebat,  sed  etiam  quid- 
quid  habere  cupiebat.  Quis  enim  pauper  non  turgescit  in  spem  seculi 
bujus  ?  quis  non  quotidie  cupit  augere  quod  habet  ?  Ista  cupiditas  prsecisa 
est.  Prorsus  totum  mundum  dimisit  Petrus,  et  totum  mundum  Petrus 
accipiebat.  And  Gregory  the  Great,  following  in  the  same  line  {Horn.  \. 
in  Ecanrj.) :  Multum  ergo  Petrus  et  Andreas  dimisit,  quando  uterque 
etiam  desideria  habendi  dereliquit,  Multum  dimisit,  qui  cum  re  possessa 
etiam  concupiscentiis  renuntiavit.  A  sequentibiis  ergo  tanta  dimissa 
sunt  quanta  a  non  sequentibus  concupisci  potuerunt.  Cf.  Clemens  of 
Alexandria,  Quis  Dives  Salvusf  20,  vol.  ii.  p,  946,  Potter's  ed. 

*  Intended  no  doubt  as  an  incorporation  in  act  of  Deut.  sxxiii.  17. 


150    FIRST  MIRACULOUS  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES. 

felt  strongly  and  deeply,  and  would  faiu  make  others 
share  in  their  feeling,  they  have  had  recourse  to  such  a 
language  as  this,  which  so  powerfully  brings  home  its 
lesson  through  the  eyes  to  the  mind.  The  noonday  lantern 
of  Diogenes  expressed  his  contempt  for  humanity  far  more 
effectually  than  all  his  scornful  words  ever  would  have 
done  it.  As  the  Cynic  philosopher,  so  too  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  though  in  quite  another  temper,  would  often- 
times weave  their  own  persons  into  such  parabolic  acts, 
would  use  themselves  as  a  part  of  their  own  symbol;  and 
this,  because  nothing  short  of  this  would  satisfy  the 
earnestness  with  which  the  truth  of  God,  whereof  they 
desired  to  make  others  partakers,  possessed  their  own 
souls  (Ezek.  xii.  1-12;  Acts  xxi.  11).  And  thus  not  this 
present  only,  but  many  other  of  our  Lord's  works  were 
such  an  embodied  teaching,^  the  incorporation  of  a  doctrine 
in  an  act ;  meaning  much  more  than  met  the  natural  eye, 
and  only  entirely  intelligible  when  this  significance  has 
been  recognized  in  them  (Matt.  xxi.  18,  19;  John  xxi.  19). 
The  deeds  of  Him,  who  is  the  Word,  are  themselves  also, 
and  are  intended  to  be,  words  for  us.^ 

^  Lampe :  In  uoibra  prtemonstrabatur  quam  laeto  successu  in  omni 
labore,  queni  in  nomine  Dei  suscepturi  esseut,  piscaturam  prfecipue  mysti- 
cam  inter  gentes  instituentes,  gavisuri  sint.  Grotius,  who  has  often 
traits  of  delicate  and  subtle  exposition,  finds  real  prophecy  in  many  of 
the  subordinate  details  here:  Libenter  igitur  hie  veteres  sequor,  qui 
prfecedentis  historias  hoc  putant  esse  to  aXXt^yopovftevor,  Apostolos  non 
suapte  industria  sed  Christi  iniperio  ac  virtute  expansis  Evangelii  retibus 
tantaui  facturos  capturam,  ut  opus  habituri  sint  subsidiaria  multorum 
£t'oyyfXi(Trwj'  opera;  atque  ita  impletum  iri  non  unam  navem,  Judseorum 
scilicet,  sed  et  alteram  gentium,  sed  quarum  navium  futura  sit  arcta  atque 
indivulsa  societas.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  (see  Cramer,  Cateiia,  in  loc.) 
had  anticipated  this ;  Augustine  (Serin,  cxxxrii.  2) ;  and  Theophylact 
(in  loc.) ;  this  last  tracing  in  their  night  of  fruitless  toil  the  time  of  the 
law,  during  which  there  was  no  kingdom  of  God  with  all  men  pressing 
into  it. 

*  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xxiv.)  :  Nam  quia  ipse  Christus  Yerbum 
est,  eriaai  factum  Verbi  verbum  nobis  est.  Ep.  cii.  qu.  6 :  Nam  sicut 
humana  consuetude  verbis,  ita  divina  potentia  etiam  factis  loquitur. 


4.  THE  STILLING   OF  THE  TFMPJSST. 

Matt.  viii.  23-27 ;  Maek  iv.  35-41 ;  Luke  Tiii.  22-2o, 

THE  three  Evangelists,  who  relate  this  history,  consent 
in  placing  it  immediately  before  the  healing  of  the 
possessed  in  the  country  of  the,  Gadarenes.  There  is  not 
so  perfect  a  consent  in  respect  of  the  events  which  imme- 
diately preceded  it ;  and  the  best  harmonists  forsake  the 
order  and  succession  of  these  as  given  by  the  first,  in 
favour  of  that  offered  by  the  other  two ;  as  it  does  not 
seem  that  by  any  skill  they  can  be  perfectly  reconciled. 
It  was  evening,  the  evening,  probably,  of  that  day  on 
Avhich  the  Lord  had  spoken  all  those  parables  recorded  in 
Matt.  xiii.  (cf.  Mark  iv.  35),  when,  seeing  great  multitudes 
about  Him  still,  ^Ile  gave  commandment  to  depart  unto  the 
other  side '  of  the  lake,  to  the  more  retired  region  of  Pera3a. 
'A7id  when  they  had  sent  away  the  multitude,''  which,  how- 
ever, was  not  effected  without  three  memorable  sayings  to 
tliree  who  formed  part  of  it  (Matt.  viii.  19-22;  cf.  Luke  ix. 
57—62),  ^they  tooTi  Him,  even  as  He  was"  (that  is  with  no 
preparation  for  a  voyage)  'in  the  shij).'  But  before  the 
voyage  was  accomplished,  'behold  there  arose  a  great 
tempest^  in  the  sea.'     A  sudden  and  violent  squall,  such  as 

1  'Qg  7/)':=sine  ullo  ad  iter  apparatu. 

-  Si(T/ioc,  which  St.  Matthew  here  employs,  must  be  used  very  rarely 
indeed  for  a  storm  at  sea ;  neither  the  lexicons  nor  commentaries  give  a 
single  other  example.  It  is  the  technical  word,  with  or  without  y))c,  for 
an  emihquake,  being  often  so  employed  in  the  New  Testament  (Matt. 
xxiv.  7;  xxviii.  2;  Rev.  xvi.  18  ;  cf.  Amos  i.  i);  and  is  used  of  any 
other  great  shaking,  literal  or  figurative.  AalXaip,  which  the  other  two 
Evangelists  employ  (Markiv.  37  ;  Luke  viii.  23  ;  cf.  2  Pet.  ii.  17),  belongs 
properly  to  the  A«?ii,-  of  poetry,  but,  like  other  -words  of  the  same  charac- 


152  THE   STILLIXa   OF   THE   TEMPEST. 

these  small  inland  seas,  sui-rounded  with,  mountain  gorges, 
are  notoriously  exposed  to,  descended  on  tlie  bosom  of  the 
lake :  and  the  ship  which  bore  the  Saviour  of  the  world 
appeared  to  be  in  imminent  peril,  as,  humanly  sx^eaking, 
no  doubt  it  was ;  for  these  men,  exercised  to  the  sea  many 
of  them  from  their  youth,  and  familiar  with  all  the  changes 
of  that  lake,  would  not  have  been  terrified  by  the  mere 
shadow  and  ghost  of  a  danger.  But  though  the  danger 
was  so  real,  and  was  ever  growing  more  urgent,  until  Hhe 
leaves  heat  into  the  ship,  so  that  noiv  it  was  full,'  their 
Master,  weaiy  and  worn  out  with  the  toils  of  the  day, 
continued  sleeping  still  :  He  was,  according  to  details 
which  St.  Mark  alone  has  preserved,  '  in  the  hinder  part  of 
the  ship,  asleep  iipon  a  pillow ; '  and  was  not  roused  by  all 
the  tumult  and  confusion  incident  on  such  a  moment. 
We  behold  in  Him  here  exactly  the  reverse  of  Jonah 
(Jon.  i.  5,  6);  the  fugitive  prophet  asleep  in  the  midst  of  a 
like  danger  out  of  a  dead  conscience,  the  Saviour  out  of 
a  pare  conscience — Jonah  by  his  presence  making  the 
danger,  Jesus  yielding  the  pledge  and  the  assurance  of 
deliverance  from  the  danger.' 

But  the  disciples  understood  not  this.  It  may  have 
been  long  before  they  ventured  to  arouse  Him;  yet  at 
length  the  extremity  of  the  peril  overcame  their  hesitation, 
and  they  did  so,  not  withovit  exclamations  of  haste  and 
terror ;  as  is  evidenced  by  the  double  *  Master,  Master,'  of 
St.  Luke.  This  double  compellation,  as  it  scarcely  needs 
to  observe,  always  marks  a  special  earnestness  on  the  part 
of  the  speaker ;  and  as  God's  speakings  to  man  are  ever  of 
this  character,  it  will  often  be  found  in  them  (Gen.  xxii.  1 1 ; 

ter,  found  its  way  into  the  prose  of  the  koivi)  ^iciSiktoc.  Ilesychius 
defines  it  cu'^wv  avcrpocpi)  inO'  vtrov:  but  darkness  as  ■well  as  rain  should 
be  included  in  the  deflnition  of  it ;  in  Homer  it  is  constantly  (peuvi),  or 
KiXaivi).  The  storm-wind  by  which  Elijah  was  rapt  from  earth  to  heaven 
is  XalXaip  TTvpo^  (z  Kin.  ii.  ii,  LXX). 

*  Jerome  (in  loc.)  :  IIujus  signi  typum  in  Jona  legimus,  quando 
ceteris  periclitantibus  ipse  securus  est,  et  dormit,  et  suscitatur :  et  imperio 
ac  Sacramento  passionis  suae  liberat  suscitantes. 


THE   STILLING    OF   THE    TEMPEST.  153 

Exod.  iii.  4;  i  Sam.  iii.  10;  Luke  x.  41  ;  Acts  ix.  4);  as 
in  man's  also  to  God  (Matt.  vii.  22 ;  xxvii.  46).  In  St. 
Mark,  the  disciples  rouse  their  Lord  with  words  almost  of 
rebuke,  as  if  He  were  unmindful  of  their  safety,  '  Master, 
carest  Thou  not  that  we  perish  ?  '  though  in  this  their  '  we  ' 
including  no  doubt  their  beloved  Lord  as  well  as  them- 
selves.^ ^  And  He  saith  unto  them,  Why  are  ye  fearful,  0 
ye  of  little  faith  ?  ' — from  St.  Matthew  it  would  apjDear, 
first  blaming  their  want  of  faith,  and  then  pacifying  the 
storm ;  though  the  other  Evangelists  make  the  blame  not 
to  have  preceded,  but  to  have  followed,  the  allaying  of  the 
winds  and  waves.  Probably  it  did  both  :  He  spoke  first 
to  his  disciples,  calming  with  a  word  the  tempest  in  their 
bosoms ;  and  then,  having  allayed  the  tumult  of  the 
outward  elements.  He  again  turned  to  them,  and  more 
deliberately  rebuked  their  lack  of  faith  in  Him.^  Still  let 
it  be  observed  that  He  does  not,  according  to  St.  Matthew, 
call  them  '  without  faith/  but  '  of  little  faith  ; '  and  St. 
Mark's,  *  How  is  it  ye  have  no  faith  ? '  must  be  modified 
and  explained  by  the  milder  rebuke  recorded  in  the  other 
Evangelists.  They  were  not  wholly  without  faith ;  for, 
believing  in  the  midst  of  their  unbelief,  they  turned  to 
Christ  in  their  fear.     They  had  faith,  but  it  was  not  quick 

^  On  the  different  exclamations  of  fear  whicli  different  Evangelists  put 
into  the  mouth  of  the  disciples,  Augustine  says  well  {De  Cons.  Evang.  ii. 
24) :  Una  eademque  seutentia  est  excitantium  Dominuni,  volentiumque 
salvari :  nee  opus  est  quoerere  quid  horum  potius  Christo  dictum  sit, 
Sive  enim  aliquid  horum  trium  dixerint,  sive  alia  verba  qure  nullus 
Evangelistarum  commemoravit,  tantumdem  tamen  valentia  ad  eandem 
sententise  veritatem,  quid  ad  rem  interest  p  And  again  (a8) :  Per  hujus- 
modi  Evangelistarum  locutiones  varias,  sed  non  contrarias,  rem  plane 
utilissimam  discimus  et  pernecessariam ;  nihil  in  cuj usque  verbis  nos 
debere  inspicere,  nisi  voluutatem,  cui  debent  verba  servire  :  nee  mentiri 
quemquam,  si  aliis  verbis  dixerit  quid  ille  voluerit,  cujus  verba  non  dicit; 
ne  miseri  aucupes  voeum,  apicibus  quodammodo  literarum  putent  ligan- 
dam  esse  veritatem,  cum  utique  non  in  verbis  tantum,sed  etiam  in  ceteris 
omnibus  signis  auimorum,  non  sit  nisi  ipse  animus  inquireudus.  Cf.  66, 
in  fine, 

*  Theophylact :  ITjOairoi'  Travaag  roy  x^i^wpa  t}}c  'I'i^xvC  avTuiVf  toti  \iu 
Kal  Tov  Tr}t;  tiaKdaatjg. 


154  THE   STILLING   OF  THE   TEMPEST. 

and  lively ;  it  was  not  at  liand,  as  the  Lord's  question, 
'  Where  is  your  faith  ?  '  (Luke  viii.  25)  sufficiently  implies. 
They  had  it,  as  the  weapon  which  a  soldier  has,  hut  cannot 
lay  hold  of  at  the  moment  when  he  needs  it  the  most. 
Their  sin  lay  not  in  seeking  help  of  Him ;  for  this  indeed 
became  them  well ;  but  in  the  excess  of  their  terror,  '  Why 
are  ye  so  fearful?'^  in  their  counting  it  possible  that  the 
ship  which  bore  their  Lord  could  ever  perish. 

'  Then  He  arose,  and  rebuked  the  winds  and  the  sea  j  and 
there  was  a  great  calm.*  Caesar's  confidence  that  the  bark 
which  contained  him  and  his  fortunes  could  not  sink,  forms 
the  earthly  counterpart  to  the  heavenly  calmness  and  con- 
fidence of  the  Lord.  We  must  not  miss  the  force  of  that 
word  'rehnlced,'  preserved  by  all  three  Evangelists;  and  as 
little  the  direct  address  to  the  furious  elements,  *  Peace,  he 
still,'  *  which  St.  Mark  only  records.  To  regard  this  as  a 
mere  oratorical  personification  would  be  absurd ;  rather  is 
there  here,  as  Maldonatus  truly  remarks,  a  distinct  tracing 
up  of  all  the  discords  and  disharmonies  in  the  outward 
world  to  their  source  in  a  person,  a  referring  them  back  to 
him,  as  to  their  ultimate  ground ;  even  as  this  person  can 
be  no  other  than  Satan,  the  author  of  all  disorders  alike 
in  the  natural  and  in  the  spiritual  world.  The  Lord 
elsewhere  Wehulces*  a  fever  (Luke  iv.  39),  where  the  same 
remarks  will  hold  good.  Nor  is  this  rebuke  unheard  or 
unheeded ;  for  '  not  willingly  '  was  the  creature  thus  made 
'subject  to  vanity'  (Rom.  viii.  20).  Constituted  to  be 
man's  handmaid  at  the  first,  it  is  only  reluctantly,  and 
submitting  to  an  alien  force,  that  nature  rises  up  against 
him,  and  becomes  the  instrument  of  his  hurt  and  harm. 
In  the  hour  of  her  wildest  uproar,  she  knew  the  voice  of 

*  Ouroj  ctiXoi.  Calvin:  Qua  particula  notat  eos  extra  modum  pave- 
Bcere ;  .  .  .  .  quemlibet  vero  timorem  non  esse  lidei  contrarium,  inde 
patet,  quod  si  nihil  metuinnis,  obrepit  supina  Ciirnis  securitas. 

*  SiwTra,  TTK  (/(w-To.  Cf.  Vs.  cvi.  9  :  '  He  rebuked  (tTTiTifiijnf,  LXX)  the 
Eed  Sea  also ; '  altl.oiigh  there,  as  in  a  poem,  the  same  stress  cannot  be 
laid  on  the  word  as  here. 


THE  STILLING    OF  THE   TEMPEST.  155 

Him  who  was  lier  rightful  Lord,  gladly  returned  to  her 
allegiance  to  Him,  and  in  this  to  her  place  of  proper  servico 
to  that  race  of  which  He  had  become  the  Head,  and  whose 
lost  prerogatives  He  was  reclaiming  and  reasserting  once 
more.'  And  to  effect  all  this,  his  word  alone  was  sufficient ; 
He  needed  not,  as  Moses,  to  stretch  a  rod  over  the  deep  ; 
He  needed  not,  as  his  servant  had  needed,  an  instrument 
of  power,  apart  from  Himself,  with  which  to  do  his  mighty 
work  (Exod.  xiv.  16,  21,  27)  ;  but  at  his  word  only  'the 
tvind  ceased,  and  there  was  a  great  calm.'  ^ 

The  Evangelists  proceed  to  describe  the  moral  effect 
which  this  great  wonder  exercised  on  the  minds  of  those 
that  were  in  the  ship ; — it  may  be,  also  on  those  that  were 
in  the  '  other  little  ships,'  which  St.  Mark  has  noted  as 
sailing  in  their  company :  '  The  men  marvelled,  saying, 
What  manner  of  man  is  this,  that  even  the  ivinds  and  the  sea 
ohey  Him  ? '  an  exclamation  which  only  can  find  its  answer 
in  another  exclamation  of  the  Psalmist,  *  0  Lord  God  of 
Hosts,  who  is  like  unto  Thee  ?  Thou  rulest  the  rasinsr  of 
the  sea :  when  the  waves  thereof  arise,  Thou  stillest  them ' 
(Ps.  Ixxxix.  8,  9^).     We  see  here,   no   doubt,  the  chief 

^  A  notable  specimen  of  the  dexterity  witli  which  a  neolngical  inter- 
pretation may  be  insinuated  into  a  book  of  geography  occurs  in  Ecihr's 
PaUistina,  p.  59,  in  many  respects  a  useful  manual.  Speaking  of  this  lake, 
and  the  usual  gentleness  of  its  waters,  he  adds,  th<at  it  is  from  time  to 
time  disturbed  by  squalls  from  the  neighbouring  hills,  which  yet  '  last 
not  lonrj,  and  are  not  very  perilous  (Matt.  viii.  23-27).'  What  his 
reference  to  this  passage  means  is  more  largely  expressed  bj'  Kuinoel  (in 
loc).  Dr.  Thomson,  who  himself  witnessed  a  violent  storm  on  this  lake, 
which  lasted  for  three  days,  gives  quite  a  different  account.  '  To  under- 
stand,' he  says, '  the  causes  of  these  sudden  and  violent  tempests,  we  must 
remember  that  the  lake  lies  low  [/crtrs/S//  KciiXaxp,  Luke  viii.  23],  six 
hundred  feet  lower  than  the  ocean,  that  the  vast  and  naked  plateaus  of 
Jaulan  rise  to  a  great  height,  spreading  backward  to  the  wilds  of  Ilauran, 
and  upward  to  the  snowy  Ilermon ;  that  the  watercourses  have  cut  out 
profound  ravines  and  wild  gorges,  converging  to  the  head  of  the  lake, 
and  that  these  act  like  gv^antic  ftinncls  to  draw  down  the  winds  from  the 
mountains  '  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  part  ii.  ch.  xxv.). 

"^  ruXiivij,  not,  as  some  propose,  from  yu\a,  to  express  the  soft  milky 
colour  of  the  calm  sea,  but  from  yiXau).  So  Catullus,  describing  the 
gently-stirred  waters, — leni  resonant  plangore  cachinni. 

^  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc.  iv.  20)  :  Quum  transfretat,  Psalmus  expungi- 

n 


156  THE  STILLING   OF  THE   TEMPEST 

ethical  purpose  to  wliicli,  in  the  providence  of  God  who 
ordered  all  things  for  the  glory  of  his  Son,  this  miracle 
was  intended  to  serve.  It  was  to  lead  his  disciples  into 
thouofhts  ever  higher  and  more  awful  of  that  Lord  whom 
they  served,  more  and  more  to  teach  them  that  in  nearness 
to  Him  was  safety  and  deliverance  from  every  danger. 
The  danger  which  exercised,  should  likewise  strengthen, 
their  faith, — who  indeed  had  need  of  a  mighty  faith,  since 
God,  in  St.  Chrysostom's  words,  had  chosen  them  to  be 
the  athletes  of  the  universe.' 

An  old  expositor  has  somewhat  boldly  said,  *  This  power 
of  the  Lord's  word,  this  admiration  of  them  that  were  with 
Him  in  the  ship,  holy  David  had  predicted  in  the  psalm, 
saying,  "  They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  that  do 
business  in  great  waters,  these  see  the  works  of  the  Lord, 
and  his  wonders  in  the  deep  " '  (Ps.  cvii.  23-30).  And  as 
in  the  spiritual  world  the  inward  is  ever  shadowed  forth 
by  the  outward,  we  may  regard  this  outward  fact  but  as 
the  clothing  of  an  inward  truth  which  in  the  language 
of  this  miracle  the  Lord  declares  unto  men.  He  sets 
Himself  forth  as  the  true  Prince  of  peace  (Isai.  ix.  6-9), 
the  speaker  of  peace  to  the  troubled  and  storm-stirred 
heart  of  man,  whether  the  storms  that  stir  it  be  its  own 
inner  passions,  or  life's  outward  calamities  and  temptations. 
Thus  Augustine,  making  application  of  all  parts  of  the 

tur,  Dominus,  inquit,  super  aquas  multas  [Ps.  xxxix.  3]  :  quum  undas 
freti  discutit,  Abacuc  adinipletur,  Dispargens,  inquit,  aquas  itinere  [Ilab. 
iii.  15]:  quum  ad  minas  ejus  eliditur  mare,  Nauin  quoque  absolvitur; 
Comminans,  inquit,  mari,  et  arefacieus  illud  [Nah.  i.  4],  utique  cum 
ventis  quibus  inquietabatur. 

1  Bengel :  Jesus  liabebat  scbolani  ambulantem,  et  in  ea  scliola  multo 
solidius  instituti  sunt  discipuli,  quam  si  sub  tecto  unius  collegii  sine  ulla 
solicitudine  atque  tentatione  vixisseut.  —  A  circumstance  which  has 
perplexed  some,  that,  apparently,  the  Apostles  were  never  baptized, 
except  some  of  them  with  John's  baptism,  has  been  by  others  curiously 
explained,  that,  as  the  children  of  Israel  were  baptized  into  Moses 
in  the  Red  Sea  (i  Cor.  x.  2),  so  they  were  in  this  storm  baptized  into 
Christ.  Tertullian  (JDe  Bapt.  12):  Alii  plane  satis  coacte  injiciunt, 
tunc  Apostolos  baptismi  vicem  implesse,  quum  in  navicula,  fluctibus 
adspersi  operti  sunt. 


THE   STILLING   OF  THE   TEMPEST.  157 

miracle  :  '  Wo  are  sailing  in  tliis  life  as  through  a  sea, 
and  the  wind  rises,  and  storms  of  temptations  are  not 
wanting.  Whence  is  this,  save  because  Jesus  is  sleeping 
in  thee  ?  If  He  were  not  sleeping  in  thee,  thou  wouldest 
have  calm  within.  But  what  means  this,  that  Jesus  is 
sleeping  in  thee,  save  that  thy  faith,  which  is  from  Jesus, 
is  slumbering  in  thine  heart  ?  What  shalt  thou  do  to  be 
delivered  ?  Arouse  Him,  and  say.  Master,  we  perish.  He 
will  awaken ;  that  is,  thy  faith  will  return  to  thee,  and 
abide  with  thee  always.  When  Christ  is  awakened, 
though  the  tempest  beat  into,  yet  it  will  not  fill,  thy  ship  ; 
thy  faith  will  now  command  the  winds  and  the  waves,  and 
the  danger  will  be  over.' ' 

We  shall  do  no  wrong  to  the  literal  truth  of  this  and 
other  of  Christ's  miracles,  by  recognizing  the  character  at 

^  And  again,  Enarr.  in  Ps.  xciii.  1 9  :  Si  cessaret  Deus,  et  non  misceret 
amaritudines  felicitatibus  seculi,  oblivisceremiir  eum.  Sed  ubi  angores 
molestiarura  faciunt  fiuctus  animse,  fides  ilia  quae  ibi  dormiebat,  excitetur. 
Trauquillum  enim  erat,  quando  dormivit  Christusin  mari:  illo  dormiente, 
tempestas  orta  est,  et  coeperunt  periclitari.  Ero^o  in  corde  Christiano 
et  tranquillitas  erit  et  pax,  sed  quamdiu  vigilat  fides  nostra :  si  autein 
dormit  fides  nostra,  periolitamur.  Sed  quomodo  ilia  navis  cum  fluc- 
tuaret,  excitatus  est  Cbristus  a  fluctuantibus,  et  dicentibus,  Doniine, 
perimus:  suiTexit  ille,  imperavit  tempestatibus,  imperavit  fluctibus, 
cessavit  periculum,  facta  est  tranquillitas ;  sic  et  te  cum  turbant  concupi- 
scentice  malse,  persuasiones  nialse,  fluctus  sunt,  tranquillabuntur.  Jam 
desperas,  et  putas  te  non  pertinere  ad  Dominum ;  Evigilet  fides  tua,  excita 
Christum  in  corde  tuo  ;  surgente  fide,  jam  agnoscis  ubi  sis;  ....  Evigi- 
laute  Christo  tranquilletur  cor  tuum,  ut  ad  portum  quoque  pervenias- 
Thus  again  (/«  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xlix.) :  Fides  tua  de  Christo,  Cbristus  est 
in  corde  tuo.  .  .  .  Intrant  venti  cor  tuum,  utique  ubi  navigas,  ubi  banc 
vitam  tanquam  procellosum  et  periculosuni  pelagus  transis  ;  intrant  venti, 
movent  fluctus,  turbant  navim.  Qui  sunt  venti  ?  Audisti  convicium, 
irasceris :  convicium  ventus  est,  iracimdia  fluctus  est :  periclitaris,  dis- 
ponis  respondere,  disponis  maledictum  maledicto  reddere,  jam  navis  pro- 
piuquat  naufragio ;  excita  Christum  dormientem.  Ideo  enim  fluctuas, 
et  mala  pro  malis  reddere  praeparas,  quia  Cbristus  dormit  in  navi.  In 
corde  enim  tuo  somnus  Christi,  oblivio  fidei.  Nam  si  excites  Christum, 
id  est,  recolas  fidem,  quid  tibi  dicit  tanquam  vigilana  Cbristus  in  corde 
tuo  ?  Ego  audivi,  Daemonium  habes,  et  pro  eis  oravi ;  audit  Dominus 
et  patitur  ;  audit  servus  et  indignatur.  Sed  vindicari  vis.  Quid  enim, 
ego  jam  sum  vindicatus  ?  Cum  tibi  h!«c  loquitur  fides  tua,  quasi  impera- 
tur  ventis  et  fluctibus,  et  fit  tranquillitas  magna.  Cf,  Serin.  Ixiii. ;  Enarr-, 
in  Ps.  Iv.  8  ;  and  Enarr,  ii.  in  Ps,  xxv.  in  iuit. 


158  THE  STILLING   OF  THE   TEMPEST. 

once  symbolic  and  prophetic,  which,  many  of  them  also 
bear,  and  this  among  the  number.  The  sea  is  evermore  in 
Scripture  the  symbol  of  the  restless  and  sinful  world  (Dan. 
vii.  2,  3 ;  Eev.  xiii.  i  ;  Isai.  Ivii.  2o).  As  the  kernel  of 
the  old  humanity,  Noah  and  his  family,  was  once  contained 
in  the  Ark  which  was  tossed  on  the  waters  of  the  deluge, 
so  the  kernel  of  the  new  humanity,  of  the  new  creation, 
Christ  and  his  Apostles,  in  this  little  ship.  And  the 
Church  of  Christ  has  evermore  resembled  this  tempested 
bark,  the  waves  of  the  world  raging  horribly  around  it, 
yet  never  prevailing  to  overwhelm  it, — and  this  because 
Christ  is  in  it  (Ps.  xlvi.  1-3 ;  xciii.  3,  4) ;  who  roused  by 
the  cry  of  his  servants,  rebukes  these  winds  and  these 
waters,  and  delivers  his  own  from  their  distress.'  We  have 
in  Ezekiel  a  magnificent  description  of  a  kingdom  of  this 
world  set  forth  under  the  image  of  a  stately  and  glorious 
galley  (xxvii.  4-9) ;  but  that  with  all  the  outward  bravery  and 
magnificence  which  it  wears  utterly  perishes  :  '  thy  rowers 


*  TertuUian  (De  Bapt.  1 2) :  Ceterum  navicula  ilia  figuram  Eoclesise 
pricferebat,  quod  in  marl,  id  est  seculo,  fluctibus,  id  est  persecutionibus 
et  tentationibus,  inquietatur,  Domino  per  patientiam  velut  dormiente, 
donee  orationibus  sanctorum  in  ultimis  suscitatus,  compescat  seculum  et 
tranquillitatem  suia  reddat.  Ambrose  :  Arbor  qusedam  in  navi  est  crux 
in  Ecclesia,  qua  inter  tot  totius  seculi  blanda  et  perniciosa  naufragia 
incolumis  sola  servatur.  Compare  a  beautiful  passage  in  the  Clementine 
Homilies  (Coteler.  Patt.  Apostt.  vol.  i.  p.  609),  beginning  tbus :  'EoiKtv 
yap  oXov  TO  irpdyfia  riyf  tKKXtplai;  vjfi  iityu>'y,  Sta  rupocpov  xhixCovoq  dvdpaq 
<pipovffy  Ik  ttoWwv  t6-wv  ovrac,  koi  fi'uiv  rivd  ayaBT]Q  jSaaiXtiag  ~6\iv  otKiiv 
BfXovrac,  k.  r.  X.  The  image  of  the  world  as  a  great  ship,  whereof 
God  is  at  once  the  maker  and  the  pilot,  was  familiar  to  the  Indians  (Philo- 
stratus,  De  Vita  Apollonii,  iii.  35;  Von  Bohlen,  Pas  Alte  Indien),  and 
the  same  symbolic  meaning  lay  in  the  procession  of  EgyT)tian  priests 
bearing  the  sacred  ship  (the  navigiuM  auratum,  Curtius.  iv.  7),  full  of 
the  images  of  the  gods  (Creuzer,  Symholik,  vol.  ii.  p.  9,  3rd  edit.).  All 
this  was  recognized  in  early  Christian  Art,  where  the  Church  is  con- 
tinually set  forth  as  a  ship,  against  which  the  personified  winds  are 
fighting  (Ckristl.  Kunst- Symholik,  p.  159).  Aringhi  describes  an  old 
Beal-ring  in  which  the  Church  appears  as  this  ship,  sustained  and  sup- 
ported by  a  great  fish  in  the  sea  beneath  (Christ  the  ixevi;,  according  to 
Ps.  Ixxii.  17,  Aquila),  whilst  on  its  m.ast  and  poop  two  doves  ae  sitting: 
so  that  the  three  Clementine  symbols,  the  ship,  the  dove,  and  the  fish, 
appear  here  xmited  in  a  single  group. 


THE   STILLIXG    OF  THE   TEMPEST.  159 

have  troug-lit  thee  into  gretio  waters ;  tlie  east  wind  liatli 
broken  thee  in  the  midst  of  the  seas;'  and  they  that  hoped 
in  it,  and  embarked  in  it  their  treasures,  wail  over  its  wreck 
with  a  bitter  wailing  (ver.  26-36) ;  this  kingdom  of  God, 
this  Church  of  Christ,  meanwhile,  showing  bj  comparison 
but  as  the  insignificant  fishing-boat  which  any  wave  might 
engulf,  rides  triumphantly  over  all,  and  brings  its  precious 
freight  safely  into  haven  at  the  last. 


5.  tji:e  demoniacs  in  the  country  of  the 
qadarenes. 

Matt.  viii.  28-34.;  Maek  y.  1-20;  LrKE  viii.  26-39. 

THE  consideration  of  this,  tlie  most  important,  and,  iu 
many  respects,  the  most  perplexing  of  all  the  demoniac 
cures  in  the  New  Testament,  will  demand  some  prefatory 
remarks  on  the  general  subject  of  the  demoniacs'  of  Scrip- 
ture. It  is  a  subject  of  which  the  difficulty  is  very  much 
enhanced  by  the  fact  that, — as  with  some  of  the  spiritual 
gifts,  the  gift  of  tongues,  for  example, — the  thing  itself,  if 
it  still  survives  among  us,  yet  does  so  no  longer  under  the 
same  name,  nor  with  the  same  frequency  and  intensity  as 
of  old.  We  are  obliged  to  put  together,  as  best  we  can, 
the  separate  and  fragmentary  notices  which  have  reached 
us,  and  must  endeavour  out  of  them  to  frame  such  a  scheme 
as  will  answer  the  demands  of  the  different  phenomena ; 
we  have  not,  at  least  with  cei'tainty,  the  thing  itself  to 
examine  and  to  question,  before  our  eyes. 

It  is,  of  course,  easy  enough  to  cut  short  the  whole  in- 
quiry, and  to  leave  no  question   at  all,  by  saying  these 

^  The  most  common  name  in  Scripture  for  one  thus  possessed  is 
Saifiovt^oufvog  (Matt.  iv.  24,  and  often).  Besides  this,  cot/zcji^f  jic  (Mark 
V.  18;  Luke  viii.  36);  dv9poiirnQ  h>  TTVtvfMTi  oKaGapro}  (Mark  i.  23); 
iX(^v  irvfvixa  aKudaprov  (Acts  viii.  7)  ;  ix^ov  laifiovia  (Luke  viii.  27)  ; 
dt'OpwToQ  t^i^v  "TTVivfia  daijioi'lov  cttiaOttprov  (Luke  iv.  33)  ;  catfiofi6\T]Trri>Q 
(Justin  ^laxtjT,Apol.  2) ;  while  Ivipyovfitvoq  is  the  more  ecclesiastical  ■n-ord. 
Other  more  general  descriptions,  KaTatwaartvontvog  virb  rod  tia/SoXov 
(Acts  X.  38)  ;  6\\ovfiivog  vnb  irvtvuaTwv  ciKuQdpTwv  (Luke  vi.  i8  ;  Acts 
V.  16).  In  classic  Greek,  one  under  the  power  of  an  evil  calfiwv  was 
said  laifxovdv  (^Eschylus,  Choephoren,  564),  KaKoHaifiovdV)  and  the 
state  was  called  KaKocaifiovia,  not  being,  however,  precisely  a  similar 
condition. 


THE  DEMONIACS    OF   THE    GADARENES.       l6i 

demoniacs  were  persons  whom  we  at  this  day  should  call 
insane — epileptic,  maniac,  melancholic.  This  has  been 
often  said,^  and  the  oftener  perhaps,  because  there  is  a 
partial  truth  in  the  assertion  that  these  possessions  were 
bodilj  maladies.  There  was  no  doubt  a  substratum  of 
disease,  which  in  many  cases  helped  to  lay  open  the  suf- 
ferer to  the  deeper  evil,  and  upon  which  it  was  superin- 
duced :  ^  so  that  cases  of  possession  are  at  once  classed 
with  those  of  various  sicknesses,  and  at  the  same  time  dis- 
tinguished from  them,  by  the  Evangelists ;  who  thus  at  once 
mark  the  connexion  and  the  difference  (Matt.  iv.  24 ;  viii. 
16  ;  Mark  i.  34).  But  the  scheme  which  confounds  these 
cases  with  those  of  disease,  and,  in  fact,  identifies  the  two, 
does  not,  as  every  reverent  interpreter  of  God's  word 
must  own,  exhaust  the  matter ;  it  cannot  be  taken  as  a 
satisfying  solution  of  the  difficulties  it  presents  ;  and  this 
for  more  reasons  than  one. 

And  first,  our  Lord  Himself  uses  language  which  is  not 
reconcilable  with  any  such  explanation.  He  everywhere 
speaks  of  demoniacs  not  as  persons  merely  of  disordered 
intellects,  but  as  subjects  and  thralls  of  an  alien  spiritual 
might ;  He  addresses  the  evil  spirit  as  distinct  from  the 
man ;  '  Hold  thy  peace,  and  come  out  of  him '  (Mark  i. 
25).  And  the  unworthy  reply,  that  He  fell  in  with  and 
humoured  the  notions  of  the  afflicted  in  order  to  facilitate 
their  cure,^  is  anticipated  by  the  fact  that  in  his  most  con- 

^  As  by  Semler  in  Germany,  Comm.  cle  Dcsmoniacis  quorum  in  Novo 
Testamento  Jit  Mentio,H(i\ss,  1 770-1 779;  by  Hugh  Farmer  in  England, 
Essay  on  the  Demoniacs  of  the  Neiv  Testament,  Loudon,  1775. 

^  Origen  (in  Matth.  torn.  xiii.  6)  finds  fault  with  some  (larpi'i  he  calls 
them)  who  in  his  day  saw  in  the  youth  mentioned  Matt,  xviii.  14.,  only 
one  afflicted  with  the  falling  sickness.  He  himself  runs  into  the  opposite 
extreme,  and  will  see  no  nature  there,  because  they  saw  nothing  but 
nature. 

3  Not  to  say  that  such  treatment  had  been  sure  to  fail.  Schubert,  in 
his  book,  full  of  wisdom  and  love,  Die  Krankheiten  und  Stdnmgen  der 
menschlichen  Seek,  several  times  observes  how  fatal  all  giving  in  to  a 
madman's  delusions  is  for  his  recovery  ;  how  sure  it  is  to  defeat  its  own 
objects.     He  is  living  in  a  world  of  falsehood,  and  what  he  wants  is  not 


i62         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

fidential  discourses  witli  his  disciples  He  uses  exactly  tlio 
same  language  (Matt.  x.  8  ;  and  especially  xvii.  21,  *  Thia 
kind  goetli  not  out  but  by  prayer  and  fasting  ").  The  al- 
legiance we  owe  to  Christ  as  the  King  of  truth,  who  came, 
not  to  fall  in  with  men's  errors,  but  to  deliver  men  out  of 
their  errors,  compels  us  to  believe  that  He  would  never 
have  used  language  which  would  have  upheld  and  con- 
firmed so  serious  an  error  in  the  minds  of  men  as  the 
belief  in  satanic  influences,  which  did  not  in  truth  exist. 
For  this  error,  if  it  was  an  error,  was  so  little  an  innocuous 
one,  such  as  might  be  left  to  drop  naturally  away ;  did,  on 
the  contrary,  reach  so  far  in  its  consequences,  entwined  its 
roots  so  deeply  among  the  very  ground-truths  of  religion, 
that  He  would  never  have  suffered  it  to  remain  at  the 
hazard  of  all  the  misgrowths  which  it  could  not  fail  to 
occasion. 

And  then,  moreover,  even  had  not  the  moral  interests 
at  stake  been  so  transcendent,  our  idea  of  Christ's  absolute 
veracity,  apart  from  the  value  of  the  truth  which  He  com- 
municated, forbids  us  to  suppose  that  He  could  have  spoken 
as  He  did,  being  perfectly  aware  all  the  while  that  there 
was  no  corresponding  reality  to  justify  the  language  which 
He  used.  And  in  this  there  is  no  making  a  conscience 
about  trifles,  nor  any  losing  sight  of  that  figurative  nature 
of  all  our  words,  out  of  which  it  results  that  so  much 
which  is  not  literally  true,  is  yet  the  truest,  inasmuch  as 
it  conveys  the  truest  impression, — no  requiring  of  men  to 

more  falsehood,  but  some  truth — the  truth  indeed  in  love,  but  still  only 
the  truth.  The  greatest  physicians  in  this  line  in  England  act  exactly 
upon  this  principle. 

^  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe,  that  by  this  '  going  out '  that  is 
not  implied,  -which  Arnobius  (^Adv.  Gent.  i.  45)  in  the  rudest  manner 
expresses,  ■when  he  speaks  of  gens  ilia  mersorum  in  viscerihus  doeraonum. 
The  notion  of  a  ventriloquism  such  as  this,  of  a  spirit  having  his  lodging 
in  the  hodij  of  a  man,  could  only  arise  from  a  gross  and  entire  confusion  of 
the  spiritual  and  material,  and  has  been  declared  by  great  teachers  of  the 
Church  not  to  be  what  they  understand  by  this  language  (see  Pet. 
Lombard,  Sentent.  ii.  dist.  8).  The  German  'besesseu'  involves  a 
lesitzcnSj  as  iyKaOt^taOaif  yet  not  as  a  mechanical  local  possession. 


OF  THE   GADARENES.  163 

examine  tlie  etymologies  of  their  words  before  the  y  venture 

to  use  them.     It  would  have  been  quite  a  different  thing 

for  the  Lord  to  have  fallen  in  with  the  popular  language, 

and   to  have  spoken    of  persons    under   various    natural 

afflictions  as  '  possessed,'  supposing  He  had  found  such  a 

language  current,  but  now  no  longer,  however  it  might 

once  have  been,  vividly  linked  to  the  idea  of  possession  by 

spirits  of  evil.     In  this  there  had  been  nothing  more  than 

in  our  speaking  of  certain  forms  of  madness  as  lunacy. 

We  do  not  thus  imply  our  belief,  however  it  may  have 

been  with  others  in  time  past,  that  the  moon  has  wrought 

the  harm  ;  ^  but  finding  the  word,  current,  we  use  it :  and 

this  the  more  readily,  since  its  original  derivation  is  so 

entirely  lost  sight  of  in  our  common  conversation,  its  first 

impress  so  completely  worn  off,  that  we  do  not  thereby 

even  seem  to  countenance  an  error.     But  suppose  with  this 

same  disbelief  in  lunar  influences,  we  were  to  begin  to 

speak  not  merely  of  lunatics,  but  of  persons  on  whom  the 

moon  was  working,  to  describe  the  cure  of  such,  as  the 

ceasing  of  the  moon   to   afflict   them ;  the  physician  to 

promise  his  patient  that  the  moon  should  not  harm  him 

any  more,  would  not  this  be  quite  another  matter,  a  direct 

countenancing  of  error  and  delusion  ?  would   there  not 

here  be  that  absence  of  agreement  between  thoughts  and 

words,   in  which  the   essence  of  a  lie   consists  ?     Now 

Christ  does  everywhere  speak  in  such  a  language  as  this. 

Take,  for  instance,  his  words,  Luke  xi.  17-26,  and  assume 

Him  to  have  known,  all  the  while  He  was  thus  speaking, 

that  the  whole  Jewish  belief  of  demoniac  possessions  was 

utterly  baseless,  that  Satan  exercised  no  such  power  over 

the  bodies  or  spirits  of  men,  that,  indeed,  properly  speaking, 

there  was  no  Satan  at  all,  and  what  should  we  have  here 

for  a  King  of  truth  ? 

And  then,  besides  this,  the  phenomena  themselves  are 

^  There  are  cases  of  lunambulism,  in  which,  no  doubt,  it  has  influence ; 
but  they  are  few  and  exceptional  (see  Schubert,  p.  113).  I  am  epeiildng 
of  using  the  term  to  express  all  forms  of  mental  unsoundness. 


r64         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

such  as  no  liypothesis  of  the  kind  avails  to  explain,  and 
they  thus  hid  us  to  seek  for  some  more  satisfying  solution. 
For  that  madness  was  not  the  constituent  element  in  the 
demoniac  state  is  clear,  since  not  only  are  we  without  the 
slightest  ground  for  supposing  that  the  Jews  would  have 
considered  all  maniacs,  epileptic  or  melancholic  persons,  to 
be  under  the  power  of  evil  spirits ;  but  we  have  distinct 
evidence  that  the  same  malady  they  did  in  some  cases  at- 
tribute to  an  evil  spirit,  and  in  others  not ;  thus  showing 
that  the  malady  and  possession  were  not  identical  in  their 
eyes,  and  that  the  assumjjtion  of  the  latter  was  not  a  mere 
popular  explanation  for  the  presence  of  the  former.  Thus, 
on  two  occasions  they  bring  to  the  Lord  one  dumb 
(Matt.  ix.  32),  or  diamb  and  blind  (Matt.  22),  and  in  both 
instances  the  dumbness  is  traced  up  to  an  evil  spirit.  Yet 
it  is  plain  that  they  did  not  consider  all  dumbness  as 
having  this  root ;  for  in  the  history  given  by  St.  Mark  (vii. 
32)  of  another  deaf  and  dumb,  the  subject  of  Christ's 
healing  power,  it  is  the  evident  intention  of  the  Evan- 
gelist to  describe  one  labouring  only  under  a  natural 
defect;  with  no  least  desire  to  trace  the  source  of  his 
malady  to  any  demoniacal  influence.  Signs  sufficiently 
clear,  no  doubt,  distinguished  one  case  from  the  other. 
In  that  of  the  demoniac  there  probably  was  not  the  out- 
ward hindrance,  not  the  still-fastened  string  of  the  tongue; 
it  was  not  the  outward  organ,  but  the  inward  power  of 
using  the  organ,  which  was  at  fault.  This,  with  an  entire 
apathy,  a  total  disregard  of  all  which  was  going  on  about 
him,  may  have  sufficiently  indicated  that  the  source  of 
his  malady  lay  deeper  than  in  any  merely  natural 
cause.  But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  symptoms 
which  enabled  those  about  the  sufferers  to  make  these 
distinctions,  the  fact  itself  of  their  so  discriminating 
between  cases  of  the  very  same  malady,  proves  decisively 
that  there  were  not  certain  diseases  which,  without  more 
ado,  they  traced  up  directly  to  Satan ;  but  that  they  did 
designate  by  this  name  of  possession,  a  condition  which. 


OF   THE   GADARENES.  J 65 

wliile  it  was  very  often  a  condition  of  disease,  was  also 
always  a  condition  of  much  more  than  disease. 

But  what  was  the  condition  which  our  Lord  and  his 
Apostles  signalized  by  this  name  ?  in  what  did  it  differ, 
upon  the  one  side,  from  madness, — upon  the  other,  from 
wickedness  ?  It  will  be  impossible  to  make  any  advance 
toward  the  answer,  without  saying  something,  by  way  of 
preface,  on  the  scriptural  doctrine  concerning  the  kingdom 
of  evil,  and  its  personal  head,  and  the  relation  in  which  he 
stands  to  the  moral  evil  of  our  world.  Alike  excluding,  on 
the  one  side,  the  Manichsean  error,  which  woxild  make  evil 
eternal  as  good,  and  so  itself  a  god, — and  the  pantheistic, 
which  would  deny  any  true  reality  to  evil  at  all,  or  that  it 
is  anything  else  than  good  at  a  lower  stage,  the  unripe, 
and  therefore  still  bitter,  fruit, — the  Scripture  teaches  the 
absolute  subordination  of  evil  to  good,  and  its  subsequence 
of  order,  in  the  fact  that  the  evil  roots  itself  in  a  creature, 
and  in  one  created  originally  pure,  but  the  good  in  the 
Creator.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  it  teaches  that  the  oppo- 
sition of  this  evil  to  the  will  of  God  is  most  real,  is  that  of 
a  wUl  which  does  truly  set  itself  agamst  his  will ;  that  the 
world  is  not  as  a  chess-board  on  which  God  is  in  fact  playing 
both  sides  of  the  game,  however  some  of  the  pieces  may  be 
black,  and  some  white ;  but  that  the  whole  end  of  his 
government  of  the  world  is  the  subduing  of  this  evil ;  that 
is,  not  abolishing  it  by  main  force,  which  were  no  true 
victor}^,  but  overcoming  it  by  righteousness  and  truth. 
And  from  this  one  central  will,  alienated  from  the  will  of 
God,  the  Scripture  derives  all  the  evil  in  the  universe ;  all 
gathers  up  in  a  person,  in  the  devil,  who  has  a  kingdom, 
as  God  has  a  kingdom — a  kingdom  with  its  subordinate 
ministers,—'  the   devil  and  his  angels.'  ^     This  world  of 

^  The  devil  is  never  in  Scripture  ra/juwv  or  Inifiovwv,  nor  his  inferior 
ministers  StajSoXol.  Aaijuav  and  Satfiorwi',  the  latter  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment of  far  the  most  frequent  occun-ence,  are  not  perfectly  equivalent ; 
but  there  is  more  of  personality  implied  in  Salfjwv  than  ^aijuorto)-.  Other 
names  are  ttviviui  Trovt}o6v,  Trvivna  dKuQaproVf  nvtvfxa  Sai(ioviov  aKaSdproVf 


i66         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

onrs  stands  not  isolated,  not  rounded  and  complete  in  itself, 
but  in  living  relation  witli  two  worlds, — a  liiglier,  from 
whicli  all  good  in  it  proceeds, — and  a  lower,  from  which 
all  evil.  It  thus  comes  to  pass  that  the  sin  of  man  is  con- 
tinually traced  up  to  Satan ;  Peter  says  to  Ananias,  '  Why 
hath  Satan  filled  thine  heart  to  lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost' 
(Acts  V.  3)  ?  and  St.  John,  of  Judas  Iscariot,  *  the  devil 
having  now  put  into  his  heart  to  betray  Him '  (John  xiii. 
2 ;  cf.  I  John  iii.  8 ;  John  viii.  44) ;  the  Scripture  not  by 
such  language  as  this  denying  that  the  evil  of  men  is  truly 
their  evil,  but  afi&rming  with  this,  that  it  grounds  itself  on 
an  anterior  evil.  It  is  their  evil,  since  an  act  of  their  will 
alone  gives  it  leave  to  enter.  To  each  man  the  key  is 
committed,  with  the  charge  to  keep  closed  the  gate  of  his 
soul ;  and  it  is  only  through  the  negligent  ward  which  he 

and  at  Matt.  viii.  16  they  are  simply  r«  wrnV/nra.  The  word  htl^wv 
(—cai'inujr)  is  derived  either  from  v<n.i,  scio,  and  then  signifies  '  the  know- 
ino-,'  the  full  of  insight  (in  oldest  Greek  baynov),  while  to  know  is  the 
special  prerogative  of  spiritual  beings  (on  (ppihn^oi  koI  Sal|^lOl'sg  iirrar, 
Plato,  Crat.  398  b;  ob  scientiam  nominati,  Augustine,  De  Civ.  Dei,  ix. 
20)  ;  or  else  from  fa/w,  in  its  sense  of  to  divide ;  the  ^ai/wvec  are  then  the 
distributors,  the  dividers  and  allotters  of  good  and  of  evil  to  men,  ard 
caiimv  would  thus  be  very  much  the  same  as  MuTpn,  derived  from  fiip>  r, 
a  portion.  And  this  derivation  is  perhaps  preferable,  in  that  evei  a 
feelino-  of  the  fateful  is  linked  with  the  word.  In  classic  use  the  word  is 
of  much  wider  significance  than  in  scriptural,  embracing  all  intermediate 
bein'i-s  between  men  and  the  very  highest  di\-inities,  whether  the  deified 
men  of  the  golden  age,  or  created  and  inferior  powers ;  and,  as  well  as 
f.-ijuovioc,  is  a  middle  term,  capable  of  being  applied  to  the  highest  and 
the  lowest,  and  first  deriving  from  its  adjunct  a  good  or  an  evil  signifi- 
cance ;  thus  we  have  ayaf^o^ai'/uwr,  KaKuSaifnov.  The  classical  passage  on 
the  subject  is  in  Plato's  Si/nip.  202,  203.  Already  in  Augustine's  time 
(De  Civ.  Dei,  lix.  1 9)  the  heathen  themselves  used  Saifiwv  only  in  malam 
partem,  which  he  attributes  to  the  influence  which  the  Church's  use  had 
spread  even  beyond  its  own  limits ;  though  a  tendency  to  this  use  had 
made  itself  felt  before.  Thus  if  used  of  a  god,  it  was  oftener  of  a  god  in 
his  evil  workings  on  men  than  in  his  good.  The  same  appears  more 
distinctly  in  ^ai/xonoc,  which  is  never  one  under  happy  influences  of  the 
heavenly  powers ;  but  always  one  befooled,  betrayed,  impelled  or  led  by 
them  to  his  ruin.  On  the  Greek  idea  of  the  5ai/*orfc,  see  Creuzer's 
masterly  discussion,  Symholik,  ^^ri  III.  pp.  719-748,  3rd  edit.;  Solger, 
Nachgelassene  Sehriften,\o\.  ii.  pp.  657-675 ;  Nagelsbach,  Homer.  Tkeologie, 
p.  72,  sq. ;  and,  suggesting  quite  another  derivation  than  that  hitherto 
recognized.     Pott,  Etymol.  Forschungen,  2nd  edit.  vol.  ii.  p.  947. 


OF  THE   GADARENES.  167 

has  kept  that  evil  has  found  admission  there.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  the  existence  of  a  world  of  evil  beyond  and  with- 
out our  world,  which  attaches  to  any  negligence  or  trea- 
chery here  such  fatal  and  disastrous  results. 

This  being  so,  the  question  which  presents  itself  is  this, 
namely,  what  peculiar  form  of  satanic  operation  does  the 
Scripture  intend,  when  it  speaks  of  men  as  possessed,  or 
haying  devils.  Is  their  evil  ethical,  or  is  it  merely 
j)hysical  ?  Merely  physical  it  certainly  is  not.  Doubtless 
the  suffering  of  the  demoniac  often  was  great ;  yet  we 
should  err,  if  we  saw  in  him,  as  in  the  victims  of  ghastly 
and  horrible  diseases,  only  another  example  of  the  mighty 
woe  which  Satan  has  brought  in  upon  our  race.  Nor  yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  his  evil  purely  ethical ;  we  have  in  him 
something  else  than  merely  a  signal  sinner,  a  foremost 
servant  of  the  devil,  who  with  heart  and  will  and  waking 
consciousness  is  doing  his  work ;  for  this,  whatever  his 
antecedent  guilt  may  have  been,  and  often,  I  should 
imagine,  it  had  been  great,  the  demoniac  evidently  is  not. 
But  what  in  him  strikes  us  the  most  is  the  strange  con- 
fusion of  the  physical  and  the  psychical,  each  intruding  into 
the  proper  domain  of  the  other.  There  is  a  breaking  up 
of  all  the  harmony  of  the  lower,  no  less  than  of  the  higher, 
life ;  the  same  discord  and  disorganization  manifests  it- 
self in  both.  Nor  does  the  demoniac,  like  the  wicked, 
stand  only  in  near  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  Satan  as  a 
whole.  It  is  with  him  as  if  of  the  malignant  spirits  of  the 
pit  one  had  singled  him  out  for  its  immediate  prey ;  as 
when  a  lion  or  a  leopard,  not  hunting  in  the  mass  a  hei'd 
of  flying  antelopes,  has  fastened  upon  and  is  drinking  out 
the  life-blood  of  one. 

But  the  awful  question  remains.  How  should  any  have 
sunken  into  this  miserable  condition,  have  been  entangled 
so  far  into  the  bands  of  the  devil,  or  of  his  ministers  ?  We 
should  iind  ourselves  altogether  upon  a  wrong  track,  did 
we  conceive  of  the  demoniacs  as  the  worst  of  men,  and  their 


1 68         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE    COUNTRY 

possession  as  the  plague  and  penalty  of  a  wickedness  in 
\vliicli  they  had  greatly  exceeded  others.  Rather  we  must 
esteem  the  demoniac  one  of  the  unhappiest,  but  not,  of 
necessity,  one  of  the  guiltiest  of  our  race.'  So  far  from 
this,  the  chief  representatives  and  organs  of  Satan,  false 
prophets  and  antichrists,  are  never  spoken  of  in  this  lan- 
guage.'^ We  all  feel  that  Judas'  possession,  when  Satan 
entered  into  him  (John  xiii.  27),  was  specifically  different 
from  that  of  one  of  the  unhappy  persons  who  were  the  sub- 
jects of  Christ's  healing  power.  Or,  to  borrow  an  illustra- 
tion from  the  world  of  fiction,  none  would  speak  of  lago 
as  SaifMovi^o/xevos,  however  all  the  deadliest  malignity  of 
hell  was  concentrated  in  him ;  we  should  trace  much  closer 

^  This  is  exactly  Heinroth's  exaggeration,  tracing  up,  as  he  does,  insanity 
in  every  case  to  foregoing  sin ;  and  not  this  alone,  but  affirming  that  none 
who  had  not  fallen  deeply  away  from  God  could  be  liable  to  this  inflic- 
tion, that  in  fact  they  are  the  outermost  circle  of  them  who  have  obeyed 
the  centrifugal  impulses  of  sin.  But  every  one  who  knows  what  manner 
of  persons  have  been  visited  by  this  terrible  calamity,  and  also  what 
manner  of  persons  have  not,  at  once  revolts  against  this  doctrine  thus 
stated.  Still  Heinroth's  unquestionable  merit  remains,  that  more  dis- 
tinctly, I  believe,  than  any  before  him,  he  dared  to  say  out  that  such 
cases  stood  in  a  different,  and  oftentimes  far  nearer,  connexion  to  the 
kingdom  of  evil  than  a  fever  or  a  broken  limb.  The  mere  fact  that 
insanity  is  on  all  sides  allowed  to  demand  a  moral  treatment,  the  physical 
remedies  being  merely  secondary  and  subsidiary,  is  sufficient  to  put  it  in 
wholly  another  class  from  every  other  disease.  The  attempt  to  range  it 
with  them  is  the  attempt,  natural  enough  in  those  who  know  not  the 
grace  of  God  in  Christ,  to  avoid  looking  down  into  the  awful  deeps  of 
our  fallen  nature.  For  a  list  of  Heinroth's  works,  almost  all  bearing 
upon  this  subject,  see  the  Conversatious-Lexicoti  under  his  name.  In 
dealing  with  this  subject  he  had  the  inestimable  advantage  of  being  at 
once  a  theologian  and  physician.  For  Schubert's  more  qualified  opinion 
on  the  same  subject  see  p.  37  of  his  work  already  referred  to. 

^  So  the  accusation  of  the  people,  '  Thou  hast  a  devil '  (John  vii.  20  ; 
viii.  48,  52 ;  X.  20),  was  quite  diff'erent  from,  and  betrayed  no  such 
deadly  malignity  as,  that  of  the  Pharisees,  that  He  cast  out  devils  by 
Beelzebub  (Matt.  xii.  24).  That  first  was  a  common  coarse  blasphemy, 
a  stone  flung  at  random  ;  this,  which  charged  Him  with  being  in  willing 
and  conscious  alliance  with  the  prince  of  evil,  was  on  the  very  verge  of 
being  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  (ver.  31).  The  distinction 
between  wicked  men  and  demoniacs  was  clctarly  recognized  in  the  early 
Churcli ;  it  had  its  excommunications  for  the  former,  its  exorcists  for 
the  latter. 


OF  THE   GADARENES.  169 

analogies  to  this  state  in  some  aspects  of  Hamlet's  life. 
Greek  tragedy  supplies  a  yet  apter  example.  It  is  the 
noble  Orestes,  whom  the  '  dogs  of  hell '  torture  into  mad- 
ness ;  the  obdurate  Clytemnestra  is  troubled  on  account  of 
her  deed  with  no  maddening  spectres  from  the  unseen 
world.  Thus,  too,  in  actual  life,  the  horror  and  deep 
anguish  of  a  sinner  at  the  contemplation  of  his  sin  may 
have  helped  on  this  overthrow  of  his  spu'itual  life, — anguish 
which  a  more  hardened  sinner  would  have  escaped,  but 
escaped  it  only  by  being  a  worse  and  more  truly  devilish 
man.'  We  are  not  then  to  see  in  these  cases  of  possession 
the  deliberate  giving  in  to  the  satanic  will,  of  an  utterly 
lost  soul,  but  the  still  recoverable  wreck  of  what  might 
once  have  been  a  noble  spirit.* 

And,  consistently  with  this,  we  find  in  the  demoniac  the 
sense  of  a  bondage  in  which  he  does  not  acquiesce,  of  his 
true  life  absolutely  shattered,  of  an  alien  power  which  has 
mastered  him  wholly,  and  now  is  cruelly  lording  over  him, 
and  ever  drawing  further  away  from  Him  in  whom  only 
any  created  intelligence  can  find  rest  and  peace.  His  state 
is,  in  the  most  literal  sense  of  the  world,  *  a  possession  : ' 
another  is  ruling  in  the  high  places  of  his  soul,  and  has  cast 
down  the  rightful  lord  from  his  seat ;  and  he  knows  this  ; 
and  out  of  his  consciousness  of  it  there  goes  forth  from  him 
a  cry  for  redemption,  so  soon  as  ever  a  glimpse  of  hope  is 
afibrded,  an  unlooked-for   Redeemer   draws   near.     This 

^  See  the  article  Bescssaie,  by  Dierenger,  in  Asclibach's  Allgetneine 
Kir chen- Lexicon,  a  Roman  Catholic  work. 

^  Dallaeus  {De  Cult.  Rel.  Lat.  i.  p.  64)  draws  well  the  distinction  : 
Etsi  qiiicunque  sub  peccati  jugo  sunt,  omnes  diaboli  servi  sint,  latum 
tamen  est  inter  peccatorem  et  energumenon  discrimen.  In  ilium  doemon 
agit  efficacia,  ut  sic  dicam,  morali,  in  hunc  physicd  sive  naturali.  lUius 
animum  objectis  ad  peccandum  illecebris  pervenit,  hujus  corpus  et 
corporis  sensus  vel  interiores  vel  etiam  exteriores  turbat ;  ilium  vitiis, 
hunc  morbis  subigit ;  denique  ilium  volentem  et  consentientem,  hunc 
invitum  et  repugnantem  tenet  ac,  ut  loquimur,  possidet.  Alia  peccatori, 
alia  energumeno  comparata  sunt  remedia.  Illius  vitiis  imbutus  animus 
ratione,  exhortatione,  verbo  denique  evangelico  cm-andusest,  hujus  corpus 
vi  superior!  et  dono  divinitus  dato  liberandum. 


170         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

sfir.se  of  misery,  this  yearning  after  deliverance,  is  that, 
in  fact,  which  constituted  these  demoniacs  subjects  for 
Christ's  healing  power.  Without  it  they  would  have  been 
as  little  subjects  of  this  as  the  devils,  in  whom  evil  has  had 
its  perfect  work,  in  whom  there  is  nothing  for  the  divine 
grace  to  take  hold  of; — so  that  in  their  case,  as  in  every 
other,  faith  was  the  condition  of  healing.  There  was  in 
them  a  spark  of  higher  life,  not  yet  trodden  out ;  which, 
indeed,  so  long  as  they  were  alone,  was  but  light  enough  to 
reveal  to  them  their  darkness ;  and  which  none  but  the  \ery 
Lord  of  life  could  have  fanned  again  into  a  flame.  But 
He  who  came  *  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil,'  as  He 
showed  Himself  lord  over  purely  physical  evil,  a  healer  of 
the  diseases  of  men,  and  lord  no  less  over  purely  spiritual 
evil,  a  deliverer  of  men  from  their  sins, — manifested  Him- 
self also  lord  in  these  complex  cases  partaking  of  the 
nature  of  either,  ruler  also  in  this  border  land,  where  these 
two  regions  of  evil  join,  and  run  so  strangely  and  inex- 
plicably one  into  the  other. 

Yet  while  thus  *  men  possessed  with  devils  '  is  in  no  wise 
an  equivalent  expression  for  surpassingly  wicked  men, 
born  of  the  serpent  seed,  of  the  devil's  regeneration,  and 
so  become  his  children  (Acts  xiii.  lo), — seeing  that  in  such 
there  is  no  cry  for  redemption,  no  desire  after  deliverance, 
it  is  more  than  probable  that  lavish  sin,  above  all,  indul- 
gence in  sensual  lusts,  superinducing,  as  it  often  would,  a 
weakness  of  the  nervous  system,  wherein  is  the  especial 
band  between  body  and  soul,  may  have  laid  open  these 
iinhappy  ones  to  the  fearful  incursions  of  the  powers  of 
darkness.  They  were  greatly  guilty,  though  not  the 
guiltiest  of  all  men.  And  this  they  felt,  that  by  their  own 
act  they  had  given  themselves  over  to  this  tyranny  of  the 
devil,  a  tyranny  from  which,  as  far  as  their  horizon  reached, 
they  could  see  no  hope  of  deliverance, — that  to  themselves 
they  owed  that  this  hellish  might  was  no  longer  without 
them,  which  being  resisted  would  flee  from  them ;  but  a 


OF  THE   GADAEENES.  171 

power  wliich  now  they  could  not  resist,  and  wliich  would 
not  flee. 

Tlieplienomena  wliicli  the  demoniacs  of  Scripture,  espe- 
cially those  now  before  us,  exhibit,  entirely  justify  this  view 
of  the  real  presence  of  another  will  upon  the  will  of  the 
sufferer.  Th.ey  are  not  merely  influences,  which  little  by 
little  have  moulded  and  modified  his  will  and  brought  it  into 
subjection ;  but  a  power  is  there,  which  the  man  at  the  very 
moment  he  is  succumbing  to  it,  feels  to  be  the  contradiction 
of  his  truest  being ;  but  which  yet  has  forced  itself  upon 
him,  and  possessed  him,  that  he  must  needs  speak  and  act 
as  its  organ ;  however  presently  his  personal  consciousness 
may  re-assert  itself  for  a  moment.'  This,  that  they  have 
not  become  indissolubly  one,  that  the  serpent  and  the  man 
have  not,  as  in  Dante's  awful  image,  grown  together, 
*  each  melted  into  other,  "^  but  that  they  still  are  twain; 
this  is,  indeed,  the  one  circumstance  of  hope  which  survives 
amid  the  general  ruin  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life.  Yet 
this,  for  the  time  being,  gives  the  appearance,  though  a 

^  In  accesses  of  delirium  tremens,  the  penalty  of  lavisli  indulgence  in 
intoxicating  drinks,  -we  find  something  analogous  to  this  douhle  conscious- 
ness. The  victim  of  this  '  in  his  most  tranquil  and  collected  moments 
is  not  to  be  trusted ;  for  the  transition  from  that  state  to  the  greatest 
violence  is  instantaneous  :  he  is  often  recalled  by  a  -word  to  an  apparent 
state  of  reason,  but  as  quickly  his  false  impressions  return  ;  there  is  some- 
times evidence,  at  the  time,  of  a  state  of  dimhle  consciousness,  a  condition 
of  mind  -^hich  is  sometimes  remembered  by  the  patient  when  the 
paroxysm  is  over '  (Bright  and  Addison,  On  the  Practice  of  Medicine, 
vol.  i.  p.  262).  Gfrorer,  a  German  rationalist,  is  struck  with  a  like  phe- 
nomenon in  others  (Das  Ileili(/thum  und  die  Wah7-he it,  Stuttgart,  1838, 
p.  302)  :  Anch  scheue  ich  mieh  trotz  alien  Auf  klarern  nicht  zu  bemerken, 
dass  neuerditigs  hier  zu  Lande  gar  seltsame  Erscheinungen  der  Art  beo- 
bachtet  worden  sind,  uud  wenn  ich  recht  unterrichtet  bin,  fio  hat  die 
hochste  ai'ztliche  Behorde  in  Wiirtemberg,  der  solche  Falle  vorgele;it 
wurden,  dahin  entschieden,  dass  es  allerdingg  Krankheiten  geben  konne, 
durch  welche  zwei  Bewusstseyn  in  den  Menschen  entstehen,  so  zwar 
dass  der  Betroffene  iiberzeugt  ist,,  neben  seinem  Ich  noch  ein  Auderes 
mit  Gewalt  eingedrungenes  in  sich  zu  haben.  In  a  note  he  adds,  Mein 
Gewahrsmann  ist,  ausser  mehreren  Anderen,  ein  Mann,  den  ich  genau 
kenne,  von  kaltem  Verstande,  unbefangen,  wahrhaftig,  ein  mathema- 
tischer  Kopf. 

'  Dante,  Infento,  rsv. 

12 


11 H.         THE  DEMONIACS  IN   THE   COUNTRY 

deceptive  one,  of  a  far  entirer  wi-eck  of  his  inner  life  than 
manifests  itself  in  wicked  men,  who  have  given  themselves 
over  wholly,  without  reserve  and  without  reluetancy,  to 
the  working  of  iniquity.  In  these  last,  by  the  very  com- 
pleteness of  their  aj)Ostasy  from  the  good,  there  is  con- 
sistency at  any  rate ;  there  are  no  merest  incoherencies, 
no  violent  contradictions  at  every  instant  emerging  in 
their  words  and  in  their  conduct ;  they  are  at  one  with 
themselves.  But  all  these  incoherencies  and  self-contra- 
dictions we  trace  in  the  conduct  of  the  demoniac;  he 
nishes  to  the  feet  of  Jesus,  as  coming  to  Him  for  aid,  and 
then  presently  he  deprecates  his  interference.  There  is 
not  in  him  one  vast  contradiction  to  the  true  end  of  his 
being,  consistently  worked  out,  but  a  thousand  lesser  con- 
tradictions, in  the  midst  of  which  the  true  idea  of  his  life, 
not  wholly  obscui-ed,  will  sometimes  by  fitful  glimpses,  re- 
appear. There  is  on  his  part  an  occasional  reluctancy 
against  this  usurpation  by  another  of  his  spirit's  throne — 
a  protest,  which  for  the  present,  indeed,  does  but  aggravate 
the  confusion  of  his  life — but  which  yet  contains  in  it  the 
pledge  of  a  possible  freedom,  of  a  redemption  whereof  he 
may  be  a  partaker  still. 

One  objection  to  this  view  of  the  matter  may  be  urged, 
namely,  that  if  possession  be  anything  more  than  insanity 
in  some  of  its  different  forms,  how  comes  it  to  pass  that 
there  are  no  demoniacs  now,  that  these  have  wholly 
disappeared  from  among  us?  But  the  assumption  that 
there  are  none  now,  itself  demands  to  be  proved.  It  is 
not  hard  to  perceive  why  there  should  be  few  by  comparison; 
why  this  form  of  spiritual  evil  should  have  lost  greatly 
both  in  frequency  and  malignity,  and  from  both  these 
causes  be  far  more  difficult  to  recognize.  For  in  the  first 
place,  if  there  was  anything  that  marked  the  period  of  the 
coming  of  Christ,  and  that  immediately  succeeding,  it  was 
thti  wreck  and  confusion  of  men's  spiritual  life  which  was 
then,  the  sense  of  utter  disharmony,  the  hopelessness,  the 


OF  THE   GADABENES.  173 

despair  wliich  must  have  beset  every  man  tliat  tliougM  at 
all, — this,  with  the  tendency  to  rush  with  a  frantic  eager- 
ness into  sensual  enjoyments  as  the  refuge  from  these 
thoughts  of  despair.  That  whole  period  was  '  the  hour 
and  power  of  darkness,'  of  a  darkness  which  then,  as  just 
before  the  dawn  of  a  new  day,  was  the  thickest.  The 
world  was  again  a  chaos,  and  the  creative  words,  'Let 
there  be  light,'  though  just  about  to  be  spoken,  were  not 
uttered  jet.  It  was  exactly  the  crisis  for  such  soul- 
maladies  as  these,  in  which  the  spiritual,  psychical,  and 
bodily  should  be  thus  strangely  intermingled,  and  it  is 
nothing  wonderful  that  they  should  have  abounded  at  that 
time ;  for  the  predominance  of  certain  moral  maladies 
at  certain  epochs  of  the  world's  history,  specially  fitted  for 
their  generation,  with  their  gradual  decline  and  total 
disappearance  in  others  less  congenial  to  them,  is  a  fact 
itself  admitting  no  manner  of  question.' 

Moreover  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  might  of  hell  has 
been  greatly  broken  by  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  God  in 
the  flesh;  and  with  this  a  restraint  set  on  the  grosser 
manifestations  of  its  power ;  *  I  beheld  Satan  as  lightning 
fall  from  heaven '  (Luke  x.  i8  ;  cf.  Eev.  xx.  2).  His  rage 
and  violence  are  continually  hemmed  in  and  hindered  by 
the  preaching  of  the  Word  and  ministration  of  the  Sacra- 
ments. It  were  another  thing  even  now  in  a  heathen 
land,  above  all  in  one  where  Satan  was  not  left  in  undis- 
turbed possession,  but  wherein  the  great  crisis  of  the 
conflict  between  light  and  darkness  was  beginning  through 

^  All  this  has  been  well  traced  by  Ilecker,  in  tbree  valuable  treati3e3 
translated  into  English  with  this  common  title,  On  the  Epidemics  of  the 
3Iicldle  Ages.  In  treating  of  the  terrible  Dancing  Mania,  he  shows  how 
there  are  centuries  open  to  peculiar  inflictions  of  these  kinds  ;  how  they 
root  themselves  in  a  peculiar  temperament  which  belongs  to  men's 
minds  in  those  ages  ;  and  how  when  they  disappear,  or  become  rare  and 
lose  their  intensity,  their  very  existence  is  denied  by  the  sceptical  igiiO- 
rance  of  a  later  age  (pp.  87-152).  Compare  Delitzsch,  System  of  Biblical 
Psychology,  Engl.  Transl.  pp.  358-360.  The  whole  chapter  ii  lull  of 
interest. 


174         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

the  first  ijroclaiming  there  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  There 
we  might  expect  to  encounter,  whether  in  the  same  in- 
tensity or  not,  manifestations  analogous  to  these.  Rhenius, 
a  well-known  Lutheran  missionary  in  India,  gives  this  as 
exactly  his  own  experience,^ — namely,  that  among  the 
native  Christians,  even  though  many  of  them  walk  not  as 
children  of  light,  yet  there  is  no  such  falling  under  satanic 
influence  in  soul  and  body,  as  he  traced  frequently  in  the 
heathen  around  him;  and  he  shows  by  a  remarkable 
example,  and  one  in  which  he  is  himself  the  witness 
throughout,  how  the  assault  in  the  name  of  Jesus  on  the 
kingdom  of  darkness,  as  it  brings  out  aU  forms  of  devilish 
opposition  into  fiercest  activity,  so  calls  out  the  endeavour 
to  counterwork  the  truth  through  men  who  have  been 
made  direct  organs  of  the  devilish  will. 

It  may  well  be  a  question  moreover,  if  an  Aj)ostle,  or 
one  with  apostolic  discernment  of  spirits,  were  to  enter 
into  a  madhouse  now,  he  might  not  recognize  some  of  the 
sufferers  there  as  *  possessed.'  Certainly  in  many  cases  of 
mania  and  epilepsy  there  is  a  condition  very  analogous  to 
that  of  the  demoniacs.  The  fact  that  the  sufferer,  and 
commonly  those  around  him,  may  apprehend  it  differently, 
is  not  of  the  essence  of  the  matter ;  they  will  but  in  this 
reflect  the  popular  impression  of  the  time.  Thus,  no 
doubt,  the  Jews  unreasonably  multiplied  the  number  of 
the  possessed,  including  among  cases  of  possession  many 
lower  forms  of  disharmony  in  the  inner  life.  The  same 
mistake  may  very  probably  have  been  committed  in  the 
early  Church,  and  many  there,  who  had  not  fallen  under 
this  immediate  tyranny  of  the  devil,  may  yet  have  traced 
up  their  sufferings  directly  to  him.  Now,  however,  the 
popu.lar  feeling,  which  the  unhappy  man  brings  with  him 
into  his  forlorn  state,  sets  the  opposite  way,  and  in  agree- 
ment  with   this    is   the   language   which  he  uses  about 

^  In  a  letter  of  date  March  27,  18 18,  printed  in  Von  Meyers  Blatter 
fur  hShere  Wahrheit,  vol.  vii.  pp.  199-208. 


OF  THE   GADAEENES.  175 

himself,  and  otliers  use  about  him.  But  the  case  imme- 
diately before  us  is  one  in  which  no  question  can  exist, 
since  the  great  Physician  of  souls  Himself  declares  it  one 
of  a  veritable  possession,  and  treats  it  as  such ;  and  to  this 
we  will  address  ourselves  now. 

The  connexion  is  very  striking  in  which  this  miracle 
stands  with  that  other  which  went  immediately  before. 
Our  Lord  has  just  shown  Himself  as  the  pacifier  of  the 
tumults  and  the  discords  in  the  outward  world ;  He  has 
spoken  peace  to  the  winds  and  to  the  waves,  and  hushed 
the  war  of  elements  with  a  word.  But  there  is  somethino* 
wilder  and  more  fearful  than  the  winds  and  the  waves  in 
their  fiercest  moods — even  the  spirit  of  man,  when  it  has 
broken  loose  from  all  restraints,  and  yielded  itself  to  be  his 
organ,  who  brings  confusion  and  anarchy  wherever  his 
dominion  reaches.  And  Christ  will  accomplish  here  a  yet 
mightier  work  than  that  which  He  accomplished  there ; 
He  will  prove  Himself  here  also  the  Prince  of  Peace,  the 
restorer  of  the  lost  harmonies  ;  He  wiU  speak,  and  at  his 
potent  word  this  madder  strife,  this  blinder  rage  which  is 
in  the  heart  of  man,  will  allay  itself,  and  here  also  there 
shall  be  a  great  calm. 

In  seeking  to  combine  the  accounts  given  us  of  this 
memorable  healing,  a  difiiculty  meets  us  at  the  outset  ^ 

*  There  is  another  difnculty,  namely,  that,  according  at  least  to  the 
received  reading,  St.  Matthew  lavs  the  scene  of  the  miracle  in  the 
country  of  the  Gergesenes,  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  in  that  of  the 
Gadarenes.  Bat  the  MSS.  in  all  three  Evangelists  vary  between 
Ta^annrCor,  Vipa'yiivwv,  and  Ttpyini^vCov  (see  Tregelles,  On  the  Printed 
Text  of  the  Greek  Testament,  p.  191) ;  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  say  that 
there  exists  even  a  seeming  contradiction  here.  Lachmann,  for  instance, 
l:nd3  none,  -who,  certainly  with  no  motive  of  excluding  such,  reads 
rfprtT);i'wi'  throughout,  which  reading  Origen  found  in  most  MSS.  of  his 
day;  Fritzsche,  in  like  manner,  everywhere  VK^apuvwi-,  which  Winer 
also  prefers  (Eealwdrterbuch,  s.  v.  Gadara),  This  reading  Origen  says 
(in  Joh.  torn.  vi.  2+),  was  not  in  many  MSS.  of  his  time ;  yet  is  almiit 
certainly  the  right  one  ;  Griesbach,  Scholz,  Tischendorf,  Tregelles,  Alford 
having  all  adopted  it ;  for  Gadara,  the  capital  city  of  Percea,  lay  s.e.  of 
the  southern  point  of  Gennesareth^  at  a  distance  of  not  more  tlian  sixty 


176         THE  DEMONIACS   IN   THE    COUNTRY 

this,  namely,  that  St.  Matthew  speaks  of  two  demoniacs, 
while  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  only  of  one.  Many  recon- 
ciliations of  their  statements  have  been  offered ;  as  that 
one  was  a  more  notable  person  in  the  country  than  the 
other,  which  is  Augustine's ;  *  or  that  one  was  so  much 
fiercer  as  to  cause  the  other  by  most  persons  hardly  to  be 
taken  note  of,  which  is  that  of  Maldonatus.  However  we 
may  account  for  it,  one,  it  is  evident,  did  fall  into  the 
background ;  and,  therefore,  following  the  later  Evan- 
gelists, I  shall  speak  in  the  main  as  they  do,  of  the  one 
demoniac  who  met  the  Lord  as  He  came  out  of  the  ship ; 
— not  as  though  the  other  was  not  present :  but  these 
accoimts,  in  which  there  appears  but  one,  being  those 
which,  as  the  fullest,  I  desire  mainly  to  follow,  it  would 
cause  much  embarrassment  to  use  any  other  language. 

The  picture  of  the  miserable  man  is  fearful ;  and  in  draw- 
ing it  eacli  Evangelist  has  some  touches  peculiarly  his  own ; 

stadia  from  Tiberias,  its  country  being  called  VaSapint:  (see  the  Did.  of 
the  Bible,  s.  v.).  But  Gerasa  lay  on  the  extreme  eastern  limit  of  Perfea 
(Joseplius,  B.  J.  iii.  3.  3;  iv.  9.  i);  so  as  sometimes  to  be  numbered 
among  the  cities  of  Arabia,  and  much  too  distant  to  give  its  name  to  a 
district  on  the  borders  of  the  lake.  Origen,  therefore,  on  topographical 
motives,  suggests  rfp7£<T?;i'wj',  a  reading  which  apparently  is  a  pure  con- 
jecture of  his  own,  and  which,  till  he  gave  it  an  impulse,  had  no  place  in 
any  MSS.  He  does  not  see  in  this  any  reference  to  the  old  ripyiffalm, 
one  of  the  seven  nations  of  Canaan  (Deut.  vii.  i),  but  to  a  city  in  that 
neighbourhood  called  ripyiTa,  whose  existence  he  affirms;  but  of  which 
in  some  earlier  editions  of  this  book  I  stated  there  exists  no  trace 
whatever ;  see,  however,  as  slightly  modifying  this  assertion,  Dr. 
Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Book,  part  ii.  ch.  xxv.,  though  his  proofs  are 
of  the  weakest.  If  there  did  lie  any  difference  in  the  several  Gospels  at 
the  first,  it  would  probably  be  explained  thus,  that  the  limits  of  the 
territory,  belonging  to  each  city,  were  not  very  accurately  determined, 
so  that  one  Evangelist  called  it  the  country  of  one  city,  and  one  cf 
another. 

^  Augustine  (De  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  24.)  :  Intelligas  unum  eorum  fuisse 
personae  alicujus  clarioris  et  famosioris,  quern  regio  ilia  maxime  dolebat : 
so  Theophylact,  that  one  was  'tTnain^oTipnQ,  and  Grotius,  See  another 
solution  in  Lightfoot,  Exercit.  on  St.  Mark,  in  loc.  In  the  same  way 
St.  Matthew  mentions  two  blind  men  (xx,  30),  where  the  other  Evange- 
lists mention  only  one  (Mark  x.  46  ;  Luke  xviii.  35).  It  remained  for  a 
modem  interpreter.  Amnion  (Biblische  Theologie),  to  suggest  that  the 
two  were  a  madman  and  his  keeper  ' 


OF  THE   GADARENES.  i-jj 

but  St.  Mark's,  as  is  liis  wont,  is  the  most  graphic  of  all, 
adding  many  strokes  which  wonderfully  enhance  the  teiTi- 
bleness  of  the  man's  condition,  and  thus  magnify  the  glory 
of  his  cure.  He  had  his  dwelling  among  the  tombs,  that 
is,  in  places  unclean  because  of  the  dead  men's  bones 
which  were  there  (Num.  xix.  i  r,  i6  j  Matt,  xxiii.  27  ;  Luke 
xi.  44).  To  those  who  did  not  therefore  shun  them,  these 
tombs  of  the  Jews  afforded  ample  shelter,  being  eitl^er 
natural  caves,  or  recesses  artificially  hewn  out  of  the  rock, 
often  so  large  as  to  be  supported  with  columns,  and  with 
cells  upon  their  sides  for  the  reception  of  the  dead.  Being 
without  the  cities,  and  oftentimes  in  remote  and  solitary 
places,  they  would  attract  those  who  sought  to  avoid  all 
fellowship  of  their  kind.'  Many  such  tombs  may  still  be 
found  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Gadara.^  This 
man  was  possessed  of  that  extraordinary  muscular  strength 
which  maniacs  so  often  put  forth  (cf.  Acts  xix.  16),  and  thus 
all  efforts  to  bind  and  restrain  him  (and  such  had  been  often 
repeated)  had  proved  ineffectual  (Mark  v.  4).  St.  Matthew 
alone  relates  how  he  had  made  the  way  impassable  for 

^  Havernick,  on  Daniel  iv.  33,  quotes  ^tius,  De  Melancholia,  iii.  8  ; 
who  says  of  the  melancholy-mad,  ol  TrXftout,"  *''  cKortiroiQ  ronoig  xaipovcn 
ciarfil(inf,  Ka'i  iv  nviiftacrtf  Kai  iv  ipii/jicic.  And  Warbui'ton  (77je  Crescent 
and  the  Cross,  vol.  ii.  p.  352)  remarkably  illustrates  this  account:  'On 
descending  from  these  heights  [those  of  Lebanon],  I  found  myself  in  a 
cemetery,  whose  sculptui'ed  turbans  showed  me  that  the  neighbouring 
village  was  Moslem.  The  silence  of  the  night  was  now  broken  hy  fierce 
yells  atid  howlings,  which  I  discovered  proceeded  from  a  naked  maniac, 
who  was  fighting  with  some  wild  dogs  for  a  bone.  The  moment  he 
perceived  me,  he  left  his  canine  comrades,  and  bounding  along  with 
rapid  strides,  seized  my  horse's  bridle,  and  almost  forced  him  backward 
over  the  clilF,  by  the  grip  he  held  of  the  powerful  Mameluke  bit.' 

'  See  Burckhardt,  and,  for  the  whole  scenery  of  this  miracle,  Stanley, 
Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  372.  'The  most  interesting  remains  of  Gadara,' 
says  the  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  a.  v.,  *  are  its  tombs,  which  dot  the  cliff 
for  a  considerable  distance  round  the  city.  They  are  excavated  in  the 
limestone  rock,  and  consist  of  chambers  of  various  dimensions,  some  more 
than  twenty  feet  square,  with  recesses  in  the  sides  for  bodies.  The  doors 
are  slabs  of  stone,  a  few  being  ornamented  with  panels ;  some  of  them 
still  remain  in  their  places.  The  present  inhabitants  of  Um  Keis  [the 
old  Gadara]  are  all  troglodytes,  "  dwelling  in  tombs,"  like  the  pocr 
maniacs  of  old.' 


178         THE   DEMONIACS  IN  THE    COUNTRY 

travellers  ;  St.  Luke  alone  that  lie  was  -without  clothing,' 
which,  however,  is  assumed  in  St.  Mark's  statement,  that 
after  he  was  healed  he  was  found  *  clothed,  and  in  his  right 
mind,'  sitting  at  Jesus'  feet.  Yet  with  all  this,  he  was  not 
so  utterly  lost,  but  that  from  time  to  time  there  woke  up 
in  him  a  sense  of  his  misery,  and  of  the  frightful  bondage 
under  which  he  had  come ;  although  this  could  express 
itself  only  in  his  cries,  and  in  a  blind  rage  against  himself 
as  the  trae  author  of  his  woe ;  out  of  which  he  wounded 
and  cut  himself  with  stones.* 

From  such  an  one  as  this  the  Lord  received  his  first 
greeting  on  those  shores  which  now,  probably  for  the  first 
time,  his  feet  were  treading.  This  man  with  his  com- 
panion starting  from  their  dwelling-place  in  the  tombs, 
rushed  down  to  encounter,  it  may  hav^e  been  with  hostile 
violence,  the  intruders  who  had  dared  to  set  foot  on  their 
domain.  Or  possibly  they  were  at  once  drawn  to  Christ  by 
the  secret  instinctive  feeling  that  He  was  their  helper,  and 
repelled  from  Him  by  the  sense  of  the  awful  gulf  that 
divided  them  from  Him,  the  Holy  One  of  God.  At  any 
rate,  if  it  was  with  purposes  of  violence,  ere  the  man  reached 
Him  his  mind  was  changed ;  'for  He  had  commanded  the 
unclean  sjpirit  to  come  out  of  the  man '  (Luke  viii.  29),  and 
the  unclean  spirit  had  recognized  one  that  had  a  right  to 
command ;  against  whom  force  would  avail  nothing ;  and, 

^  Pricliard  (On  Insanity,  p.  26)  quotes  from  an  Italinn  physician's 
description  of  raving  madness  or  mania :  *  A  striking  and  characteristic 
circumstance  is  the  propensity  to  go  quite  naked.  The  patient  tears  his 
clothes  to  tatters ; '  and  presently,  in  exact  accordance  with  the  descrip- 
tion we  have  here :  *  Notwithstanding  his  constant  exertion  of  mind  and 
body,  the  muscular  strength  of  the  patient  seems  daily  to  increase.  He 
id  ahle  to  break  the  strongest  bonds,  and  even  chains.' 

^  Prichard  {Ibid.,^.  113),  describing  a  case  of  raving  mania:  'He 
habitually  wounde'd   his   hands,   wrists,    and  arms,    with   needles   and 

pins ; the  blood  sometimes  flowed  copiously,  dropping  from  his 

elbows  when  his  arms  were  bare.'  Altogether  we  have  here  a  fearful 
commentary  on  the  words  of  St.  Peter,  who  describes  such  as  this  man  as 
being  KaracvranTivoufvovc,  vtt'o  rov  SinjSoXov  (Acts  X.  38).  An  apocryphal 
allusion  to  this  miracle  dilds  one  circumstance  more, — that  they  gnawed 
their  own  flesh :  aapKo<j.ayuvvras  Tuif  i£iix)v  fiiXijv  (Thilo,  Cod.  Apoctyph. 
vol.  i.  p.  808). 


OF   THE    GADARENES.  179 

like  others  on  similar  occasions,  sought  by  a  strong  adju- 
ration to  avert  his  coming  doom.  He  '  cried  with  a  loud 
voice,  Wliat  have  I  to  do  with  Thee,  Jesus,  Thou  Son  of  the 
most  high  God  ?  (of.  Luke  iv.  34, 41  ;  Acts  xvi.  17.)  I  adjure 
Thee  hy  God  that  Thou  torment  me  not.^  '  Herein  the  true 
devilish  spirit  speaks  out,  which  counts  it  a  torment  not  to 
he  suffered  to  torment  others,  and  an  injury  done  to  itself 
•when  it  is  no  more  permitted  to  be  injurious  to  others.  In 
St.  Matthew  they  say,  *  Art  Thou  come  hither  to  torment  us 
before  the  time  ?  '  so  that,  by  their  own  confession,  a  time 
is  coming,  an  inevitable  hour,  when  there  shall  be  an  entire 
victory  of  the  kingdom  of  light  over  that  of  darkness,  and 
when  all  which  belong  unto  the  latter  shall  be  shut  up  in 
the  abyss  (Rev.  xx.  10),  and  all  power  of  harming  withdrawn 
from  them  for  ever.  All  Scripture  agrees  with  this,  that 
the  judgment  of  the  angels  is  yet  to  come  (i  Cor.  vi.  3)  ; 
they  are  *  reserved  in  everlasting  chains  under  darkness 
unto  the  judgment  of  the  great  day '  (Jude  6)  ;  and  what 
the  unclean  spirits  deprecate  here,  is  the  bringing  in,  by 
anticipation,  of  that  final  doom. 

The  first  bidding  of  Christ  is  not  immediately  obeyed  ; — 
the  evil  spirits  remonstrate,  and  do  not  at  once  abandon 
their  prey.  No  doubt  He  could  have  compelled  them  to 
this,  had  He  pleased  ;  but  the  man  might  have  perished  in 
the  process  (cf.  Mark  ix.  24).     Even  that  first  bidding  had 

^  Baur  (Apollomus  von  Ti/ana  und  Christus,  p.  145)  notes  the  remark- 
aMe  resemblance  which  the  narrative  in  the  Life  of  Apollonins  (iv.  25) 
of  the  demon  which  sought  vainly  to  avert  its  doom,  and  at  length 
yielded  to  the  threatening  words  of  ApoUonius,  and  abandoned  the  young 
man  of  Corcyra,  has  with  the  present.  This  resemblance  extends  to  the 
very  words.  As  the  possessed  exclaims  hei'e,  Ti  t/ioJ  koi  cnu,  ^lijoov,  tii 
Tov  Qiov  Tov  vx^inruv  j  dinuai  aov,  fii)  ^i  [iumivtayc,  SO  there  of  the  Liamui 
it  is  said,  ^aKpvovn  li^xei  TO  (jdnna,  Kai  tSt'iro  fti)  [iafTiiini^eit'  ahro  ^i]lk 
dvayKuliiv  o/toXoyeTr,  o,rt  tiij.  Baur  does  not  doubt  that  that  narrative 
was  fashioned  in  imitation  of  this.  Another  expulsion  of  a  demon 
(iv.  20)  has  even  more  notable  points  of  likeness ;  and  he  might  have 
referred  to  a  third  (iii.  38),  in  which  many  features  of  the  father's 
intercession  for  his  lunatic  sou  (Matt.  xvii.  15,  16),  and  of  the  Syrophoe- 
nician  mother  for  her  daughter  (Matt.  xv.  22),  appear  curiously  blended 
together. 


l8o         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

induced  a  terrible  paroxysm.  It  was  then  of  Christ's  o^vn 
•will,  of  tlie  Physician  wise  and  tender  as  He  was  strong, 
to  proceed  step  by  step.  And,  first,  He  demands  of  him 
his  name, — some  say,  to  magnify  the  greatness  of  the  de- 
liverance and  the  Deliverer,  by  showing,  through  the 
answer,  the  power  and  malignity  of  the  foe  that  should  be 
overcome.  But,  more  probably,  the  question  was  directed 
to  the  man.  It  should  calm  him,  by  bringing  him  to  re- 
collection, to  the  consciousness  of  his  personality,  of  which 
a  man's  name  is  the  outward  expression, — that  he  was  a 
person,  having  once  been  apart  from,  nor  even  now  inex- 
tricably bound  up  with,  those  spiritual  wickednesses  which 
had  dominion  over  him.  The  question  may  thus  have  been 
intended  to  facilitate  his  cure.'  But  if  so  meant,  either  the 
evil  spirit  snatches  at  the  answer  and  replies  for  himself, 
or  the  unhappy  man,  instead  of  recurring  to  his  true  name, 
that  which  should  remind  him  of  what  he  was  before  he 
fell  under  this  tliraldom,  declares  his  sense  of  the  utter 
ruin  of  his  whole  moral  and  spiritual  being.  In  his  reply, 
*  My  name,  is  Legion,  for  ive  are  many,'  truth  and  error  are 
fearfully  blended.  Not  on  one  side  only,  but  on  every  side, 
the  walls  of  his  spirit  have  been  broken  down  ;  and  he  laid 
open  to  all  the  incursions  of  evil,  torn  asunder  in  infinite 
ways,  now  under  one  hostile  and  hated  power,  now  under 
another.  The  destruction  is  complete  ;  they  who  rule  over 
him  are  '  lords  many.'  Only  by  an  image  drawn  from  the 
reminiscences  of  his  former  life  can  he  express  his  sense  of 
his  own  condition.  He  had  seen  the  serried  ranks  of  a 
Roman  legion,  that  fearful  instrument  of  conquest,  that 
sign  of  terror  and  fear  to  the  conquered  nations,  and  before 
which  the  Jew  more  especially  quailed.  Even  such,  at  once 
one  and  many,  cruel  and  inexorable  and  strong,  were  the 

'  In  cases  of  soranamhulism,  which  must  be  refrarded  as  a  disorder, 
though  iu  one  of  the  mildest  forms,  of  the  spiritual  life,  the  sleep-walker, 
when  everything  else  fails,  may  often  be  awakened  and  recalled  to  a 
healthy  state  of  consciousness  through  being  addressed  by  his  name 
(Schubert,  Krankheiteti  und  Stoningai  der  menschl.  Scele,  p.  368). 


OF  THE   GADARENES.  i8i 

powers  tliat  were  tyrannizing  over  liim.'  When  it  is  said 
of  Marj  Magdalene,  that  out  of  her  had  gone  seven  devils 
(Luke  viii.  2),  something  of  the  same  truth  is  expressed, — 
that  her  spiritual  life  was  laid  waste,  not  on  one  side  only, 
but  on  many  (cf.  Matt.  xii.  45). 

And  then  again,  with  that  interchange  of  persons  which 
was  continually  going  forward,  that  quick  shifting,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  polarity,  so  that  at  one  moment  the  human 
consciousness  became  the  positive,  at  another  the  negative 
j)ole,  the  unclean  spirit,  or  rather  the  man,  become  now 
his  organ,  speaks  out  anew,  entreating  not  to  be  sent  into 
the  deep,  or  as  it  would  be  better  '  the  abyss  '  ^  (Luke  viii. 
31),  or,  clothing  his  petition  in  the  form  of  a  notion  which 
belonged  to  the  man  whom  he  possessed,  '  that  He  would 
not  send  them,  away  out  of  the  country '  (Mark  v.  10).  The 
request  is  in  each  case  the  same ;  for,  according  to  Jewish 
notions,  certain  countries  being  assigned  to  evil  as  well  as 
to  good  spirits,  the  limits  of  which  they  were  unable  to 
overj)ass,  to  be  sent  out  of  their  own  country,  no  other 
being  open  to  them,  implied  being  sent  into  the  abyss, 
since  that  alone  would  remain  for  them. 

Hereupon  follows  a  circumstance  which  has  ever  proved 
one  of  the  chief  stumbling-blocks  offered  by  the  Evan- 
gelical history.  The  devils,  if  they  must  leave  their  more 
welcome   habitation,   the   heart   of    man,   if   indeed  the 


^  See  Olshausen,  Commentary,  in  loc. 

*  Ei'c  Tijv  ii^vaaov, — our  Version  leaves  room  for  a  confusion  with  what 
follows,  where  the  swine  under  their  influence  rush  down  '  into  the  sea.'' 
Wiclif  better,  'Thei  preieden  hym  that  he  schulde  not  coraande  hem 
that  they  schulden  go  in  to  hell.'  With  a  like  liability  to  confusion 
a/3v<TToc  is  translated  '  the  deep/  Rom.  x.  7,  where  also  '  hell,'  meaning 
by  that  word  Hades  in  its  most  comprehensive  sense,  as  including  the 
gathering -place  of  all  the  departed,  and  not  the  c^rXaic//,  or  abode  of  evil 
spirits  alone,  would  have  been  better.  Besides  these  two  places,  the  word 
only  occurs  in  the  Apocalypse,  but  there  several  times,  as  ix.  i,  2,  11  ; 
xi.  7  ;  xvii.  8  ;  xx.  i,  3,  where  it  plainly  means  only  the  last,  the  rapTopoQ 
(z  Pet.  ii.  4.)=ye(in'n.  The  word  is  properly  an  adjective  from  fivnaoc, 
the  Ionic  form  of  /^cfoc,-:  so  Euripides,  Tap-dpov  aiSvdca  x''i<^iiara  (^Pha',- 
nissiS,  V,  163a). 


1 82         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

Stronger  is  come,  spoiling  the  strong  man's  goods,  taldng 
his  thralls  out  of  his  power,  yet  entreat,  in  their  inextin- 
guishable desire  of  harming,  or  out  of  those  mysterious 
affinities  which  evermore  reveal  themselves  between  the 
demoniacal  and  the  bestial,'  to  be  allowed  to  enter  into  the 
swine  ; — of  which  a  large  herd, — St.  Mark,  with  his  usual 
punctuality  notes  that  they  were  '  about  two  tJiousand,' — 
were  feeding  on  the  neighbouring  cliffs.  But  to  the  evil 
all  things  turn  to  evil.  God's  saints  and  servants  appear 
not  to  be  heard ;  and  the  very  refusal  of  their  requests  is  to 
them  a  blessing  (2  Cor.  xii.  8,  9).  The  wicked,  Satan 
(Job  i.  11)  and  his  ininisters  and  servants,  are  sometimes 
heard,  and  the  very  granting  of  their  petitions  issues  in 
their  worse  confusion  and  loss.'  So  is  it  now :  these  evil 
spirits  had  their  prayer  heard ;  but  only  to  their  ruin. 
They  are  allowed  to  enter  into  the  swine ;  but  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  whole  herd  follows ;  and  that  which  they  most 
dreaded  came  upon  them ;  no  longer  finding  organs  in  or 
through  which  to  work,  they  are  driven  perforce  to  that 
very  prisonhouse  which  they  most  would  have  shunned. 

The  first  cavil  which  has  been  raised  here  is  this — What 
right  had  the  Lord  to  inflict  this  loss  on  the  owners  of  the 
swine  ? — being  the  same  which  has  been  raised  on  occasion 
of  the  cursing  of  the  barren  fig-tree  (Matt.  xxi.  19).  It 
might  be  sufficient  to  answer  to  this,  that  Christ  did  not  send 
the  devils  into  the  swine ;  He  merely  drove  them  out  from 
the  men ;  all  beyond  this  w^as  merely  permissive.'  But 
supposing  that  He  had  done  so — a  man  is  of  more  value 
than  many  swine ;  and  if  this  granting  of  the  evil  spirits' 

>  Of  which  last  the  s-;vine  (arnica  luto  sus)  may  be  taken  for  the 
fittest  exponents,  as  is  ■vN'itnessed  in  the  ethical  language  of  most  nations ; 
in  the  Latin,  for  example,  where  xpurcus  is  in  close  connexion  with 
po7-cus  (Doderlein,  Led.  Si/non.  vol.  ii.  p.  55),  and  in  the  French  cocho)*- 
uerie. 

*  See  Augustine's  excellent  words,  in  Ep.  J'uJi.  tract,  vi.  7,  8. 

'  Augustine:  Expulsa  et  in  porcos  ^j«7?H'«srt  dajmonia ;  and  Aquinas  : 
Quod  autem  porci  in  mare  prrecipitati  sunt,  non  fuit  operatio  dirini 
miraculi,  sed  operatio  dcemonum  e  permiasione  divina. 


OF  THE   GAD  A  RENE  S.  183 

request  helped  in  any  way  the  cure  of  this  sufferer,  caused 
them  to  relax  their  hold  on  him  more  easily,  mitigated  the 
paroxysm  of  their  going  forth  (cf.  Mark  ix.  26),  this  would 
have  been  motive  enough  for  allowing  them  to  perish.  It 
may  have  been  necessary  for  the  permanent  healing  of  the 
man  that  he  should  have  this  outward  evidence  and  testi- 
mony that  the  hellish  powers  which  held  him  in  bondage 
had  quitted  their  hold.  He  may  have  needed  to  have  his 
deliverance  sealed  and  realized  to  him  in  the  open  de- 
struction of  his  enemies ;  not  otherwise  to  be  persuaded 
that  Christ  had  indeed  and  for  ever  set  him  free;  as  Israel, 
coming  out  of  Egypt,  must  see  the  Egyptians  dead  upon 
the  sea- shore  before  they  could  indeed  believe  that  the  rod 
of  their  oppressors  had  been  broken  for  ever  (Exod.  xiv. 

30-) 

But  setting  aside  all  apologies,  on  what  ground,  it  may 

be  asked,  is  this  which  the  Lord  here  wrought,  made  more 

the  subject  of  cavil  than  any  other  loss  inflicted  upon  men 

by  Him  from  whom  all  things  come,  and  who  therefore 

can  give  or  take  away  according  to  the  good  pleasure  of 

his  will  ?     Men  might  object  with  as  good  a  right  against 

the  murrain  which  causes  cattle  to  die,  the  inundation  that 

destroys   the   fruits   of  the   field,    or   any  other  natural 

calamity  with  which  God  chastens  his  children,  punishes, 

or  seeks  to  make  contrite  the  hearts  of  his  enemies ;  for 

oftentimes  his  taking  away  is  in  a  higher  sense  a  giving ; 

a  withdrawing  of  the  meaner  thing,  to  make  receptive  of 

the  better.     Thus  might  it  well  have  been  intended  here, 

however  the  sin  of  these  Gadarenes  hindered  the  gracious 

design.     If  the  swine  belonged  to  Jewish  owners,  and  we 

know  from  Josephus  that  there  were  numbers  of  helleni- 

zing  Jews  just  in  these  parts,  there  may  have  been  in  this 

loss  a  punishment  meant  for  them  who  from  motives  of 

gain  showed  themselves  despisers  of  Moses'  law.'     It  must 

be  owned,  however,  that  the  population  of  the  Decapoli?' 

'  See  Eisonmenger,  EntcJecktes  Judenthu7n,  vol.  i.  p.  704. 


1 84         THE  DEMONIACS  IN   THE   COUNTRY 

was  predominantly  Gentile ;  Joseplius  calls  Gadara  itself  a 
Greek  city.' 

But  tlie  narrative  is  charged  with  contradiction  and  ab- 
surdity. The  unclean  spirits  ask  permission  to  enter  into 
the  swine,  yet  no  sooner  have  they  thus  done  than  they 
defeat  their  own  purpose,  destroying  that  animal  life,  from 
which  if  they  be  altogether  driven,  they  have  already  con- 
fessed they  will  be  obliged  to  betake  them  to  the  more 
detested  place  of  their  punishment.  It  is  nowhere,  how- 
ever, said  that  they  drove  the  swine  down  the  steep  place 
into  the  sea.  It  is  just  as  easy,  and  much  more  natural, 
to  suppose  that  against  their  will  the  swine,  when  they 
found  themselves  seized  by  this  new  and  strange  power, 
rushed  themselves  in  wild  and  panic  fear  to  their  destruc- 
tion,— the  foremost  plunging  headlong  down  the  cliffs,  and 
the  rest  blindly  following.  But  in  either  case,  whether 
they  thus  destroyed  themselves,  or  were  impelled  by  the 
foul  spirits,  there  reveals  itself  here  the  very  essence  and 
truest  character  of  evil,  which  evermore  outwits  and  de- 
feats itself,  being  as  inevitably  scourged  in  the  granting 
of  its  requests  as  in  their  refusal ;  which,  stupid,  blind, 
self-contradicting,  and  suicidal,  can  only  destroy,  and  will 
involve  itself  in  the  common  ruin  rather  than  not  destroy. 
And  what,  if  in  the  fierce  hatred  of  these  foul  spirits  of 
darkness  against  the  Prince  of  light  and  life,  they  may 
have  been  willing  to  bring  any  harm  on  themselves,  if  only 
they  might  so  bring  on  Him  the  ill-will  of  men,  and  thus 
traverse  and  hinder  his  blessed  work?  And  this,  no 
doubt,  they  did  effectually  here ;  for  it  was  fear  of  further 
losses,  and  alienation  from  Christ  on  account  of  those  by 
his  presence  already  entailed  upon  them,  which  moved  the 
people  of  the  country  to  urge  Him  that  He  would  leave 
their  coasts. 

But  the  point  of  most  real  difficulty  is  the  entering  of 
the  devils  into  the  swine, — the  working,  that  is,  of  tho 
'  Antt.  xvii.  n.  4. 


OF  THE   GADARENES.  185 

spiritual  life  on  the  bestial,  whicli  seems  altogether  irre- 
ceiDtive  of  it,  and  to  possess  no  organs  through,  which  it 
could  operate.  I  put  aside  of  course  here,  as  both  in 
themselves  merely  ridiculous,  and  irreconcilable  with  the 
documents  as  they  lie  before  us,  the  solutions  of  Paulus 
and  his  compeers,  that  the  demoniac,  in  the  parting 
paroxysm  of  his  madness,  hunted  the  creatures  over  the 
precipices  into  the  lake,  or  that,  while  the  swineherds  were 
drawn  by  curiosity  to  watch  the  encounter  between  Christ 
and  the  demoniac,  or  had  gone  to  warn  Him  of  the  danger 
of  meeting  the  madman,  the  untended  herd  fell  a  fightmg, 
and  so  tumbled  headlong  over  the  cliffs.  Whatever  diffi- 
culties this  miracle  may  present,  it  certainly  is  not  by 
shifts  such  as  these  to  be  evaded  ;  and  their  perplexity  at 
any  rate  claims  to  be  respectfully  treated,  who  find  it  hard 
to  reconcile  this  fact  with  what  else  they  have  been  taught 
to  hold  fast  as  most  precious  concerning  the  specific 
difference  between  man  with  the  whole  order  of  spiritual 
existences  on  the  one  side,  and  the  animal  creation  on  the 
other.  I  will  only  suggest  that  perhaps  we  make  to 
ourselves  a  difficulty  here,  too  easily  assuming  that  the 
lower  animal  world  is  wholly  shut  up  in  itself,  and  incapable 
of  receiving  impressions  from  that  which  is  above  it.  The 
assumption  is  one  unwarranted  by  deeper  investigations, 
which  lead  rather  to  an  opposite  conclusion, — not  to  a 
breaking  down  of  the  boundaries  between  the  two  worlds, 
but  to  the  showing  in  what  wonderful  ways  the  lower  is 
receptive  of  impressions  from  the  higher,  both  for  good 
and  for  evil.'     Nor  does  this  working  of  the  spiritual  on 

^  Kieser,  wlio  certainly  would  not  go  out  of  his  way  to  bring  his  theory 
into  harmony  with  Scripture  facts,  distinctly  recognizes  (TellimsmuSf 
vol.  ii.  p.  72),  with  reference  to  this  present  miracle,  the  possibility  of  the 
passing  over  of  demoniac  conditions  upon  others,  and  even  upon  animals 
(die  Moglichkeit  eines  Uebergangs  damonischer  Zustande  auf  Andere, 
und  selbst  auf  Thiere).  How  remarkable  in  this  respect  are  well- 
authenticated  cases  of  clairvcn/ance,  in  which  the  horse  is  evidently  by  its 
terror,  extreme  agitation,  and  utter  refusal  to  advance,  a  partaker  of  the 
vision  of  its  rider  (see  Passavant,    Unters.  Uber  d.  Jlcllsehen,  p.  31 G  5 


1 86        THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

the  physical  life  stand  isolated  in  this  single  passage  of 
Scripture,  but  we  are  taught  the  same  lesson  throughout 
(Gen.  iii.  17  ;  Eom.  viii.  18). 

'  And  they  that  hej^t  them  fled,  and  went  their  ways  into 
the  city,  and  told  every  thing,  and  what  was  befallen  to  the 
possessed  of  the  devils.'  All  three  Evangelists  record  the 
entreaty  of  the  Gadarenes  which  followed  (compare,  by  way 
of  contrast,  that  of  the  Samaritans,  John  ir.  40) :  '  And, 
behold,  the  whole  city  came  out  to  meet  Jesus  ;  and  when  they 
saw  Him,  they  besought  Him  that  He  would  depart  out  of  their 
coasts.*  Assuredly  this  entreaty  had  not,  as  Jerome  and 
others  suggest,  its  root  in  their  humility,  was  in  no  respect 
a  parallel  to  St.  Peter's,  'Depart  from  me,  for  I  am  a 
sinful  man'  (Luke  v.  8)  ;  being  provoked  rather  by  the 
injury  which  already  from  his  brief  presence  among  them 
had  ensued  to  their  worldly  possessions,  as  perhaps  by  the 
fear  of  greater  losses  which  might  follow.  This  was  their 
trial.  It  should  now  be  seen  whether  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  was  first  in  their  esteem ;  whether  they  would  hold 
all  else  as  cheap  by  comparison ;  so  that  in  this  aspect  the 
destruction  of  the  swine  had  in  regard  of  them  an  ethical 
pm'pose  and  aim.  But  under  this  trial  they  failed.  It 
was  nothing  to  them  that  a  man,  probably  a  fellow-citizen, 
was  delivered  from  that  terrible  bondage,  that  they  saw 
him  *  sitting  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,'  that  is  being  taught  of 
Him  (Luke  x.  39  ;  Acts  xxii.  3),  '  clothed,  and  in  his  right 
mind.'^     The  breach  in  their  worldly  estate  alone  occupied 

Scheitlin,  Thierseelenkunde,  vol.  ii.  p.  486).  And  indeed  in  our  common 
life  the  horse,  and  the  do<?  no  less,  are  eminently  receptive  of  the  spiritual 
conditions  of  their  appointed  lord  and  master,  Man.  With  what  electric 
swiftness  does  the  courage  or  fear  of  the  rider  pass  into  the  horse ;  and 
so  too  the  gladness  or  depression  of  its  master  is  almost  instantaneously 
reflected  and  reproduced  in  his  faithful  dog.  It  is  true  that  we  might 
expect,  as  we  should  find,  far  less  of  this  in  the  grosser  nature  of  the 
swine  than  in  those  creatures  of  nobler  races.  Yet  the  very  fierceness 
and  grossness  of  these  animals  may  have  been  exactly  that  which  best 
fitted  them  for  receiving  such  impulses  from  the  lower  world  as  those 
under  which  they  perished. 

*  Augustine   {Quesst.   Evang.   ii.   qu.    13):    Significat  Hiultitudineia 


OF  THE   GADAEENES.  187 

their  thouglits.  For  spiritual  blessings  brought  near  to 
them  they  cared  nothing  at  all ;  and  *  they  were  afraid,' 
being  ignorant  what  next  might  follow.  They  felt  the 
presence  of  God's  Holy  One  intolerable  to  them,  so  long  as 
they  remained  in  their  sins  ;  and  that  to  them,  so  remaining, 
it  could  only  bring  mischiefs,  of  which  they  had  made  the 
first  experience  already.  And  having  no  desire  to  be 
delivered  from  their  sins,  they  entreated  Him  to  go ;  they, 
like  others  before  them,  '  said  to  God,  Depart  from  us ; 
and  what  can  the  Almighty  do  for  them  ?  '  (Job  xxii.  17)  ; 
^for,*  as  St.  Luke  tells  us,  '  tliey  were  taTcen  with  great  fear.* 
And  their  prayer  also  was  heard  (Ps.  Ixxviii.  29-31);  for 
God  sometimes  hears  his  enemies  in  anger  (Num.  xxii.  20), 
even  as  He  refuses  to  hear  his  friends  in  love  (2  Cor.  xii. 
8,  9) .  He  did  depart ;  He  took  them  at  their  word,  and 
let  them  alone  '  (cf.  Exod.  x.  28,  29),  as  they  desired. 

But  the  healed  man  would  fain  have  accompanied  his 
Healer :  and  *  when  He  was  come  into  the  ship,  prayed  Him 
that  he  might  he  with  Him.'  Was  it  that  he  feared,  as 
Theophylact  supposes,  lest  in  the  absence  of  his  Deliverer 
the  spirits  of  the  pit  should  resume  their  dominion  over 

vetusta  sua  vita  delectatam,  honorare  quidem,  sed  nolle  pati,  Cliristianam 
legem,  dum  dicunt  quod  earn  implere  non  possint,  admirantes  tamen 
fidelem  populum  a  pristina  perdita  conversatione  sanatum.  The  name 
Gergeseni  has  been  often  since  given  to  those  who  will  not  endure  sound 
doctrine  (Erasmus,  Adagia,  p.  313). 

^  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxxvi.  3)  has  a  noble  passage  on  what  the 
world  calls  prosperity;  which  when  Christ  interrupts,  then  the  world 
covmts  that  He  has  brought  nothing  good,  and  would  fain  have  Him 
depart  from  it,  if  it  might:  Vides  enim  si  theatra  et  amphitheatra  et  circi 
starent  incolumes,  si  nihil  caderet  de  Babylonia,  si  ubertas  esset  circum- 
fluentium  voluptatum  hominibus  cantaturis  et  saltaturis  ad  turpia  cantica, 
si  libido  scortantium  et  meretricantium  haberet  quietem  et  securitatem, 
si  non  timeret  famem  in  dome  sua  qui  clamat  ut  pantomimi  vestiantur 
si  haec  omnia  sine  labe,  sine  perturbatione  aliqua  liuerent,  et  esset  securi- 
tas  magna  nugarum,  felicia  essent  tempora,  et  magnam  felicitatem  rebus 
humanis  Christus  adtulisset.  Quia  vero  cseduntur  iniquitates,  ut  exstir- 
pata  cupiditate  plantetur  caritas  Jerusalem,  quia  miscentur  amaritudines 
vitse  temporali,  ut  jetema  desideretur,  quia  erudiuntur  in  flagellis  homines, 
patemam  accipientes  disciplinam,  ne  judiciaiiam  inveniant  sententiam; 
nihil  boni  adtulit  Christus,  et  labores  adtulit  Christus. 

13 


iS8         THE  DEMONIACS  IN  THE   COUNTRY 

him,  and  noAvliere  felt  safe  but  in  immediate  nearness  to 
Him? — or  did  he  only  desire,  out  of  the  depth  of  his 
gratitude,  henceforth  to  be  a  follower  of  Him  to  whom  he 
owed  this  mighty  deliverance  ?  Whatever  was  his  motive, 
the  Lord  had  other  purposes  with  him.  He  was  Himself 
quitting  those  who  had  shown  themselves  so  unworthy  of 
his  presence  ;  but  He  would  not  leave  Himself  without  a 
witness  among  them.  This  man  so  wonderfully  delivered 
from  the  worst  bondage  of  the  Evil  One,  should  be  to  themi 
a  standing  monument  of  his  grace  and  power,  an  evidence 
that  He  would  have  healed  them,  and  was  willing  to  heal 
them  still,  of  all  the  diseases  of  their  souls  :  *  Jesus  suffered 
him  not,  hut  saith  unto  him,  Go  home  to  thy  friends,  and  tell 
them  hoio  great  things  the  Lord  hath  done  for  thee,  and  hath 
had  comjpassion  on  thee.'  '  And  the  man  did  so,  and  not 
without  effect :  '  He  dejparted,  and  began  to  publish  in 
Decapolis  how  great  things  Jesus  had  done  for  him  j  and  all 
men  did  marvel.' ' 

Yet  this  command  that  he  should  go  and  declare  the 
great  things  done  for  him,  may  have  found  its  further 
motive  in  the  peculiar  moral  condition  of  the  man.  Only 
by  a  reference  to  this  moral  condition  are  we  able  to 
reconcile  the  apparently  contradictory  injunctions  which 
the  Lord  laid  on  those  whom  He  had  healed: — some 
being  forbidden  to  say  anything  of  God's  goodness  to  them 
(Matt.  viii.  4;  Luke  viii.  56), — this  one  commanded  to 

'  Erasmus  rightly  connects  ot,7  not  alone  with  ■KnroiriKtr^  but  also  ■with 
i)\i7](T€v — of  course,  in  the  second  case,  adverbially:  Et  quantopere  misertus 
sit  tui.  It  is  true  that  we  should  rather  expect  in  such  a  case  to  have 
the  oaa  repeated;  but  there  are  abundant  examples  to  justify  the  omis- 
sion. 

*  Augustine  (Queest.  Evmig.  ii.  13):  Ut  sic  quisque  intelligat  post 
remissionera  peccatorum  redeuudum  sibi  esse  in  conscientiam  bonam,  et 
eerviendum  Evangelio  propter  alioruni  etiam  salutem,  ut  deinde  cum 
Christo  requiescat:  no  cum  prsepropere  jam  vult  esse  cum  Christo,  negligat 
ministeriuni  prsedicationis,  fraternoe  redemptioni  accommodatum.  He 
makes  in  the  same  place  this  whole  account  an  historico-prophetic 
delineation  of  the  exorcizing,  so  to  speak,  of  the  heathen  world  of  its 
foul  superstitions  and  devilish  idolatries. 


OF  THE  GABARENES.  189 

publish  everywhere  the  mercy  which  he  had  received. 
We  may  very  well  suppose  that  where  there  was  danger 
of  all  deeper  impressions  being  scattered  and  lost  through 
a  garrulous  repetition  of  the  outward  circumstances  of  the 
healing,  silence  was  enjoined,  that  so  there  might  be  an 
inward  brooding  over  the  gracious  and  wondrous  dealings 
of  the  Lord.  But  where,  on  the  contrary,  there  was  a 
temperament  over-inclined  to  melancholy,  sunken  and 
shut  up  in  itself,  a  man  needing  to  be  drawn  out  from 
self,  and  into  healthy  communion  vrith  his  fellow-men, — 
as  was  evidently  the  case  with  such  a  solitary  melancholic 
person  as  is  here  before  us, — there  the  command  was,  that 
the  man  should  go  and  tell  to  others  the  great  things 
which  God  had  done  for  him,  and  by  the  very  act  of  this 
telling  maintain  the  healthy  condition  of  his  own  soul. 


6.  THE  MAISING   OF  JAIRUS'  BAUGHTEE. 

Matt.  ix.  18,  19,  23-26;  Makk  v.  22,  24,  35-43;  Luke  viii.  41,  42,  49-56. 

THIS  miracle  is  by  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  made  im- 
mediately to  follow  our  Lord's  return  from  that 
eastern  side  of  tlie  lake,  wliicli  He  had  quitted  when  the 
inhabitants,  guiltily  at  strife  with  their  own  good,  had 
besought  Him  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts  (Matt.  viii.  34). 
By  St.  Matthew  other  events,  the  curing  of  the  paralytic, 
his  own  calling,  and  some  discourses  with  the  Pharisees, 
are  inserted  between.  Yet  of  these  only  the  latter  (ix. 
10-17)  the  best  harmonists  find  really  to  have  here  their 
proper  place.  *  While  He  spake  these  things  unto  them, 
heholdj  there  came  a  certain  ruler,  and  worshipped  Him.' 
The  two  later  Evangelists  record  his  name,  '  Jairus,'  and 
more  accurately  define  his  office ;  he  was  '  one  of  the  rulers 
of  the  synagogue,' '  aU  which  St.  Matthew,  who  has  his  eye 
only  on  the  main  fact,  and  to  whom  all  its  accessories 
seem  indifferent,  passes  over.  The  synagogue,  we  can 
hardly  doubt,  was  that  of  Capernaum,  where  now  Jesus 
was  (Matt.  ix.  i);  the  man  therefore  most  probably  made 
afterwards  a  part  of  that  deputation  which  came  to  the 
Lord  pleading  for  the  heathen  centurion  (Luke  vii.  3) ; 

^  In  Matthew  simply  apxi^r,  ■wliich  is  explained  in  Mark  ilg  tCov 
apxinvvaywymi;  in  Luke  dp^wv  n'/f  avvayioyiig.  Many  synagogues  had 
but  one  of  these  (Luke  xiii.  14),  the  name  itself  indicating  as  much ;  yet 
it  is  plain  from  this  and  other  passages,  as  Acts  xiii.  1 5,  that  a  synagogue 
often  had  many  of  these  'rulers'  Probably  those  described  as  tuv-:  ^'vraQ 
Twv  '\oviaiwv  TrpwTovCf  whom  St.  Paul  summoned  at  Rome  (Acts  xxviii. 
1 7),  were  such  '  chiefs  of  the  synagogue '  (see  Vitringa,  De  Synagogd, 
pp.  584,  sqq.). 


THE  RAISING   OF  JAIRUS'  DAUGHTER.       191 

the  elders  of  the  Jews '  there  being  identical  with  the 

*  rulers  of  the  synagogue '  here. 

But  he  who  may  have  pleaded  then  for  another,  presents 
himself  now  pleading  for  his  own ;  for  he  comes  saying, 

*  My  daughter  is  even  now  dead  ;  hut  come  and  lay  thy  hand 
upon  her,  and  she  shall  live.*  Thus  St.  Matthew ;  but  the 
other  Evangelists  with  an  important  variation  :  *  3fy  little 
daughter  lieth  at  the  point  of  death ' '  (Mark  v.  23) :  ^He  had 
one  only  daughter,  about  twelve  years  of  age,  and  she  lay  a 
dying  *  (Luke  viii.  42).  This,  which  the  after  history 
shows  to  have  been  more  exactly  the  fact,  is  not  hard  to 
reconcile  with  the  statement  in  St.  Matthew.  Wlien  the 
father  left  his  child,  she  was  at  the  last  gasp;  he  knew  not 
whether  to  regard  her  now  as  alive  or  dead ;  he  only  knew 
that  life  was  ebbing  so  fast  when  he  quitted  her  side,  that 
she  could  scarcely  be  living  still;  ^  and  yet,  having  no 
certain  notices  of  her  death,  he  was  perplexed  whether  to 
speak  of  her  as  departed  or  not,  and  thus  at  one  moment 
would  express  himself  in  one  language,  at  the  next  in 
another.  Strange  that  a  circumstance  like  this,  so  drawn 
from  the  life,  so  testifying  to  the  reality  of  the  things 
recorded,  should  be  urged  by  some  as  a  contradiction 
between  one  Gospel  and  another. 

That  Lord  upon  whose  ear  the  tidings  of  woe  might 
never  fall  in  vain,  at  once  *  arose  and  followed  him,  and  so 
did  his  disciples.'     The  crowd  which  had  been  listening  to 

^  'Enxcirojg  1X1'*'=^  extreoiis  esse ;  one  of  the  frequent  Latinisms  of 
St.  Mark  ;  which  do  something  to  coiToborate  the  old  tradition  that  this 
Gospel  was  written  originally  at  Rome,  and  for  Roman  readers.  So  ikuvov 
7roiiJTfu=satisfacere  (xv.  15),  aTreKovXdTojp  (vi.  27),  ^oaytWou)  (xv.  15), 
\sytuv  (v.  9,  15),  TtpaiTijypioi'  (xV.  1 6),  KTiv(yoq  (xii.  14"),  Kiirvplwv  (XV.  39), 

KPcpavTTjc  (xii.  42),  ^rjvapiov  (tI.  37  ;  xiv.  5),  KioTTji;  (vii.  4, 8),  and  others. 
The  use  of  diminutives,  such  as  the  Gvyarpiov  here,  is  also  characteristic 
of  this  Evangelist;  thus  Kopa-jwv  (v.  41),  Kwapta  (vii.  27),  Ix^voia  (iii. 
7),  biTopiov  (xiv.  47). 

"^  Bengel :  Ita  dixit  ex  conjectura.  Augustine  {De  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  28)  : 
Ita  enim  de^^peraverat,  ut  potius  eam  vellet  reviviscere,  non  credens  vivam 
posse  inveniri,  quam  morientem  reliquerat.  But  Theophylact,  not,  I 
think,  rightly  :  'Hi/  av^dvwv  ti)v  tJvii<popuVf  wf  tlq  t\cov  tXuvcrai  top  Xpiarov. 


192  THE  RAISING   OF 

his  teaching,  followed  also,  curious  and  eager  to  see  what 
the  Lord  would  do  or  -would  faU  to  do.  The  miracle  of  the 
healing  of  the  woman  with  the  issue  of  blood  found  place 
upon  the  way,  hut  wiU  naturally  be  better  treated  apart ; 
being,  as  it  is,  entirely  separable  from  this  history,  though 
not  altogether  without  its  bearing  upon  it ;  for  the  delay, 
the  words  which  passed  between  the  Lord  and  his  disciples, 
and  then  between  Him  and  the  woman,  must  all  have  been 
a  sore  trial  to  the  agonized  father,  now  when  every 
moment  was  precious,  when  death  was  shaking  the  last 
few  sands  in  the  hour-glass  of  his  daughter's  life, — a  trial 
in  its  kind  similar  to  that  with  which  the  sisters  of 
Lazarus  were  tried,  when  they  beheld  their  beloved  brother 
drawing  ever  nigher  to  the  grave,  and  the  Lord  tarried 
notwithstanding.  But  sore  as  the  trial  must  have  been, 
we  detect  no  signs  of  impatience  on  his  part,  and  this  no 
doubt  was  laid  to  his  account.  While  the  Lord  was  yet 
speaking  to  the  woman,  '  there  came  from  the  ruler  of  the 
synagogue's  house  certain  which  said,  Thy  daughter  is  dead  : 
why  troublest  ^  thou  the  Master  any  further  ? '  St.  Luke 
mentions  but  one,  probably  the  especial  bearer  of  the 
message,  whom  others  went  along  with,  as  it  is  common 
for  men  in  their  thirst  for  excitement  to  have  a  kind  of 
pleasure  in  being  the  bearers  even  of  evil  tidings.  What 
hope  of  effectual  help  from  Christ  they  may  before  have 
entertained,  had  now  perished.  They  who,  perhaps,  had 
faith  enough  to  believe  that  He  could  fan  the  last  expiring 
spark  of  life  into  a  flame,  yet  had  not  the  stronger  faith 
to  anticipate  the  harder  thing,  that  He  could  rekindle 
that  spark  of  life,  after  it  had  been  quenched  altogether. 
Perhaps  the  father's  hope  would  have  perished  too,  and  no 

'  I.Kv\\u,  properly  to  flay,  as  tTKrXa  are  originally  tlie  spoils,  dress,  or 
armour,  stripped  from  the  bodies  of  the  slain ;  afterwards  more  generally, 
fatigare,  vexare,  and  often  with  a  special  reference  to  fatiguing  through 
the  length  of  a  journey  (we  should  read  hKv'K^nvoi,  not  iK\i\vniroi^ 
Matt.  xix.  36);  as  is  the  meaning  here:  'Why  dost  thou  weary  thti 
Master  with  this  tedious  way  ?  '  (see  Suicer,  Thes,  s.  v.). 


JAIRUS'  DAUGHTER.  193 

room  have  been  left  for  this  miracle,  faith,  the  necessary 
condition,  being  wanting ;  if  a  gracious  Lord  had  not  seen 
the  danger,  and  prevented  his  rising  unbelief.  *  As  soon 
as  Jesus  heard  the  word  that  was  spoken,  He  saith  to  the 
ruler  of  the  synagogue,  Be  not  afraid,  only  believe.'  There 
is  something  very  gracious  in  that  'as  soon.'  The  Lord 
spake  upon  the  instant,  leaving  no  room  for  a  thought  of 
unbelief  to  insinuate  itself  into  the  father's  mind,  much 
less  to  utter  itself  from  his  lips,  but  preoccupying  him  at 
once  with  words  of  encouragement  and  hope.* 

And  now  ETe  takes  with  Him  three  of  his  Apostles,  Peter 
and  James  and  John,  the  same  three  who  were  allowed,  on 
more  than  one  later  occasion,  to  be  witnesses  of  things 
withdrawn  from  the  others.  We  read  here  for  the  first 
time  of  such  an  election  within  the  election ;'  and  the  fact 
of  such  now  finding  place  would  mark,  especially  when  we 
remember  the  solemn  significance  of  the  other  seasons  of 
a  like  selection  (Matt.  xvii.  i,  2  ;  xxvi.  37),  that  this  was  a 
new  era  in  the  life  of  the  Lord.  The  work  on  which  He 
was  entering  now  was  so  strange  and  so  mysterious  that 
those  three  only,  the  flower  and  the  crown  of  the  apostolic 
band,  were  its  fitting  witnesses.  The  parents  were  present 
for  reasons  altogether  difierent.  With  those,  and  these, 
and  none  other,  '  He  cometh  to  the  house  of  the  ruler  of  the 
synagogue,  and  seeth  the  tumult,  and  them  that  wept  and 
wailed  greatly  '  (Mark) ;  '  the  ininstrels  and  the  people  rnahing 
a  noise,'  as  the  earlier  Evangelist  has  it. .  There,  as  every- 
where else.  He  appears  calming  and  pacifying :  '  He  saith 
unto  them,  Why  make  ye  this  ado,  and  weep  ?  the  damsel 
is  not  dead,  hut  sleepeth.     And  they  laughed  Him  to  scorn.' 

Some,  and  those  not  unbelievers,  nor  yet  timid  half  be- 
devers,  who  have  learned  to  regard  miracles  as  so  much 

'  Titus  Bostrensis  (in  Cramer,  Cat.  in  Luc.)  :  "Iva  yap  /u)  iiTry  kuI 
ttVTug,  Eniaxtc,  nu  xptlap  aov  «x'^>  Ku'fjtf,  ySii  ytyovt  to  n'lfjac,  nniOavf)',  i)i/ 
Trpoai5oKCjj.itv  vyia'ivtiv'  ctKiaToi;  yap  i)i>,  'luvSaiKuv  t^^oiv  (ppopij^a,  (pOdpii  6 
Kupiog  Kiii  (pijai,  M»)  (pojSov,  Travaov  Tl/g  d-icrriat;  rd  pi'ifiara. 

*  ^EK\tKTwv  eKXiKToTfooij  &s  Clemeiit  of  Alexandria  calls  tbem. 


194  THE  RAISING   OF 

perilous  ware,  from  wliicli  it  is  always  an  advantage  when 
tlie  Gospels  can  be  a  little  lightened, — Olshansen,  for  in- 
stance,' who  elsewhere  has  manifested  no  wish  to  explain 
awaj  the  wonderful  works  of  our  Lord, — have  yet  con- 
sidered his  words,  common  to  all  reports  of  this  miracle, 
*  The  maid  is  not  dead,  hut  sleepeth/  to  be  so  explicit,  that 
in  obedience  to  tlieni  they  have  no  choice  but  to  refuse  to 
number  this  among  the  actual  raisings  from  the  dead. 
They  account  it  only  a  raising  from  a  death-like  swoon ; 
though  possibly  a  swoon  from  which  the  maiden  would 
never  have  been  recalled  but  for  that  life-giving  touch  and 
voice.  Had  this,  however,  been  the  case,  Christ's  word  of 
encouragement  to  the  father,  when  the  tidings  came  that 
the  spirit  of  his  child  was  actually  fled,  would  have 
certainly  been  different  from  that  which  actually  it  was. 
He  might  have  bidden  the  father  to  dismiss  his  fear,  for 
He,  who  knew  all,  knew  that  there  was  yet  life  in  the  child. 
But  that  '  Be  not  afraid,  only  believe,^  points  another  way ; 
it  is  an  evident  summoning  him  to  a  trust  in  the  almighti- 
ness  of  Him,  to  whose  help  he  had  appealed.  Then  too 
Christ  uses  exactly  the  same  language  concerning  Lazarus, 
'  Our  friend  Lazarus  sleepeth  '  (John  xi.  1 1),  which  He  uses 
about  this  maiden ;  and  we  know  that  He  spoke  there  not 
of  a  death-like  swoon,  but  of  death.  When  to  this  obvious 
objection  Olshausen  replies,  that  Christ  explains  there 
distinctly  that  He  meant  the  sleep  of  death,  adding 
presently,  *  Lazarus  is  dead,'  it  is  enough  to  answer  that 
He  only  does  so  after  his  disciples  have  misapprehended  his 
words  :  He  would  have  left  those  words  as  He  had  spoken 
them,  but  for  their  error  in  supposing  that  He  had  spoken 
of  natural  sleep ;  it  was  only  then  that   He   exchanged 

^  Origen  (Con.  Cels.  ii.  48)  has,  I  think,  tlie  same  view  of  this  miracle. 
He  is  observing  on  the  absence  of  all  prodigality  in  the  miracles,  and  notes 
that  we  have  but  three  raisings  from  the  dead  iu  all ;  mentioning  this 
first  of  Jairus'  daughter,  he  adds,  Tzipl  1)1;  ovk  olS'  on-wg  ti7riv,0uK  dniOanyf 
dWd  KaOtvSn'  Xsywv  n  irfpl  auri'ic  o  ov  wckti  roig  aTroOavoixTi  ■npocljv,  but  he 
does  not  express  himself  very  plainly. 


JAIRUS'  DAUGHTER.  195 

*  Our  friend  Lazarus  sleepeth. '  for '  Lazarus  is  dead.'  But 
as  Lazarus  did  but  sleep,  because  Jesus  was  about  to 
'  awake  bim  out  of  sleep,'  so  was  tbis  maiden  only  sleeping, 
because  ber  awakening  in  like  manner  was  so  near.* 
Beside  tbis,  to  speak  of  deatb  as  a  sleep,  is  an  image 
common  to  all  languages  and  nations.  Tbereby  tbe 
reality  of  tbe  deatb  is  not  denied,  but  only  tbe  fact  im- 
plicitly assumed,  tbat  deatb  will  be  followed  by  a  resur- 
rection, as  sleep  is  by  an  awakening.  Nor  is  it  bard  to 
perceive  wby  tbe  Lord  sbould  bare  used  tbis  language 
bere.  First,  for  tbe  fatber's  sake.  Tbe  words  are  for  tbe 
establisbing  of  bis  trembling  faitb,  wbicb  at  tbe  spectacle 
of  all  tbese  signs  of  mourning,  of  tbese  evidences  tbat  all 
was  finisbed,  migbt  easily  bave  given  way  altogetber ; 
tbey  are  a  saying  over  again,  *  Be  not  afraid,  only  believe.' 
He,  tbe  Lord  of  life,  takes  away  tbat  word  of  fear,  '  8he  is 
dead,'  and  substitutes  tbat  milder  word  wbicb  contains  tbe 
pledge  of  an  awakening,  *  She  sleepeth.'  At  tbe  same  time 
in  tbat  boly  bumility  wbicb  makes  Him  ever  witbdraw  bis 
miracles  as  mucb  as  possible  from  observation.  He  will  by 
tbis  word  of  a  double  signification  cast  a  veil  for  tbe  mul- 
titude over  tbe  work  wbicb  He  is  about  to  accomplisb. 

And  now,  baving  tbus  spoken,  He  expelled  from  tbe 
bouse  tbe  crowd  of  turbulent  mourners ;  and  tbis  for  two 
reasons.  Tbeir  presence,  in  tbe  first  place,  was  inap- 
propriate and  superfluous  tbere ;  tbey  were  mourners  for 
tbe  dead,  and  sbe  was  not  dead ;  or,  at  all  events,  deatb  in 
ber  was  so  soon  to  give  place  to  returning  life,  tbat  it  did 
not  deserve  tbe  name ;  it  was  but  as  a  sleep  and  an 
awakening.  Here  was  reason  enougb.  But  more  tban 
tbis,  tbe  boisterous  and  tumultuous  grief  of  some,  witb  tbe 
bired  lamentations  of  otbers  (Jer.  ix.  17,   18;  Am.  v.  16),'' 

^  Fntzsclie :  Puellam  ne  pro  mortua  habetote,  sed  dormire  exi?timatote, 
quippe  in  vitam  mox  redituram.  Benj^el :  Puelia,  oh  resuscitatiouem 
mox  f uturam,  et  celeriter  et  certo  et  facile,  non  erat  annumeranda  mortuis 
olim  resurrecturis,  sed  dormientibus. 

*  The  presence  of  the  hired  mourners  at  a  funeral  in  general  women 


196  THE  RAISING   OF 

^ave  no  promise  of  tlie  tone  and  temper  of  spirit,  -whicli 
became  the  witnesses  of  so  liolj  and  awful  a  mystery,  a 
mystery  from  wliicli  even  Apostles  themselves  were  ex- 
cluded— to  say  nothing  of  the  profane  and  scornful  spirit 
with  which  they  had  received  the  Lord's  assurance,  that 
the  child  should  presently  revive.  Such  scorners  shall 
not  witness  the  holy  act :  the  pearls  should  not  be  cast 
before  them.  There  is  a  similar  putting  of  all  forth  on 
the  part  of  Peter  when  about  by  the  prayer  of  faith  to 
raise  Tabitha,  although  that  was  not  in  the  same  way 
provoked  (Acts  ix.  40  ;  cf.  2  Kin.  iv.  33). 

The  house  was  now  solitary  and  still.  Two  souls, 
believing  and  hoping,  stand  like  funeral  tapers  beside  the 
couch  of  the  dead  maiden — the  father  and  the  mother. 
The  Church  is  represented  in  the  three  chief  of  its 
Apostles.  And  now  the  solemn  awakening  finds  place, 
and  this  without  an  effort  on  his  part,  who  is  absolute 
Laid  of  quick  and  dead.  '  He  took  the  damsel'-:- she  was 
no  more  than  a  child,  being  '  of  the  age  of  twelve  years ' 
(Mark  v.  42) — 'hy  the  hand  (cf.  Acts  ix.  41),  and  called, 
saying,  Maid,  arise.*  St.  Mark  preserves  for  us,  having 
probably  received  them  from  the  lijjs  of  Peter,  the  very 
words  which  the  Lord  spake  in  the  very  language  wherein 
He  uttered  them,  *  Talitha  Cumi,'  as  he  does  the  *  Ephrpha- 
tha'  on  another  occasion  (vii.  34').     And  at  that  word, 

(Opqv^o^oi,  praeficos,  cornicines,  tubicines),  was  a  Greek  and  Roman,  as 
well  as  a  Jewish,  custom  (see  Becker,  Charicles,  vol.  ii.  p.  iSo). 

^  The  mention  of  these  words  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that  in  the 
intercourse  of  ordinary  life  our  Lord  employed  the  popular  Aramaic. 
This  does  not,  of  course,  decide  anything  concerning  the  language  which 
He  used,  addressing  mixed  assemblages  of  Jews  and  heathen,  learned 
and  imlearned.  On  the  extent  to  which  Greek  had  at  this  time  found 
its  way  into  Palestine,  and  was  familiar  to  all  classes  there,  there  is  a 
masterly  discussion  in  Hug's  Introduction  to  the  Neto  Testament,  which 
has  put  the  matter  quite  in  a  new  light,  and  added  greatly  to  the  proba- 
bilities that  He  often  in  his  discourses  employed  that  language.  His 
conversation  with  Pilate  could  scarcely  have  been  carried  on  in  any 
other. 


JAIBUS'  DAUGHTER.  197 

and  at  tlie  toucli  of  that  hand,  '  her  spirit  came  again,^  and 
she  arose  straightway  (Luke  viii.  55),  and-waiked"*  (Mark  v. 
42).  Hereupon,  at  once  to  strengthen  that  life  which  was 
come  back  to  her,  and  to  jDi'Ove  that  she  was  indeed  no 
ghost,  but  had  returned  to  tlie  reahties  of  a  mortal  f-x- 
istence  (cf.  Luke  xxiv.  41 ;  John  xxi.  5  ;  Acts  x.  41),  '  He 
commanded  to  give  her  meat ; '  a  precaution  the  more 
necessary,  as  the  parents  in  that  ecstatic  moment  might 
easily  have  forgotten  it.  But  before  recording  this,  St. 
Mark  does  not  fail  to  record,  as  is  his  manner,  the  profound 
impression  which  this  miracle  made  on  the  beholders ; 
*  they  were  astonished  with  a  great  astonishment '  (cf.  i.  27  ;  ii. 
12;  iv.  41  ;  vi.  51 ;  vii.  37).  St.  Luke  records  the  same, 
but  with  a  slighter  emphasis,  and  relating  only  the 
astonishment  of  the  parents. 

These  miracles  of  raising  from  the  dead,  whereof  this  is 
the  first,  have  always  been  regarded  as  the  mightiest  out- 
comings  of  the  power  of  Christ ;  and  with  justice.  They 
are  those,  also,  at  which  unbelief  is  readiest  to  stumble, 
standing  as  they  do  in  more  direct  contrast  than  any 
other,  to  all  that  our  experience  has  known.  The  line 
between  health  and  sickness  is  not  definitely  fixed ;  the 
two  conditions  melt  one  into  the  other,  and  the  transition 
from  this  to  that  is  frequent.  In  like  manner  storms 
alternate  with  calms  ;  the  fiercest  tumult  of  the  elements 
allays  itself  at  last ;  and  Christ's  word  which  stilled  the 
tempest,  did  but  anticipate  and  efifect  in  a  moment,  what 
the  very  conditions  of  nature  must  have  effected  in  the 
end.  Even  the  transmutation  from  water  to  wine,  and  the 
multiplication  of  the  bread,  are  not  without  their  analogies 
in  nature,  however  remote ;  and  thus  too  is  it  with  most 
of  the  other  miracles.  But  between  being,  and  the  negation 
of  being,  the  opposition  is  not  relative,  but  absolute ; 
between  death  and  life  a  gulf  lies,  which  no  fact  furnished 

^  The  words  of  St.  Luke,  kuI  (^((TTpiips  t6  irvevn::  avrijs,  are  exactly  the 
same  as  tliose  i  Kin.  xvii.  22,  LXX. 


198  THE  RAISING   OF 

by  our  erperience  can  help  us  even  in  imaj^mation  to 
bridge  over.  It  is  nothing  wonderful,  therefore,  that 
miracles  of  this  class  are  signs  more  spoken  against  than 
anj  other  among  all  the  mighty  works  of  the  Lord. 

The  present  will  be  a  fitting  moment  to  say  something 
on  the  relations  of  difficulty  in  which  the  three  miracles  of 
this  transcendant  character  stand  to  one  another ;  for  they 
are  not  exactly  the  same  miracle  repeated  three  times  over, 
hut  may  be  contemplated  as  in  an  ever  ascending  scale  of 
difficulty,  each  a  more  marvellous  outcoming  of  the  power 
of  Christ  than  the  preceding.  For  as  the  body  of  one 
freshly  dead,  from  which  life  has  but  just  departed,  is  very 
different  from  a  mummy  or  a  skeleton,  or  from  the  dry 
bones  which  the  prophet  saw  in  the  valley  of  death  (Ezek. 
xxxvii.),  so  is  it,  though  not  in  the  same  degree,  different 
from  a  corpse,  whence  for  some  days  the  breath  of  life  has 
fled.  There  is,  so  to  speak,  a  fresh-trodden  way  between 
the  body,  and  the  soul  which  just  has  forsaken  it ;  this 
last  lingering  for  a  season  near  the  tabernacle  where  it  has 
dwelt  so  long,  as  knowing  that  the  links  that  united  them 
have  not  even  now  been  divided  for  ever.  Even  science 
itself  has  arrived  at  the  conjecture,  that  the  last  echoes  of 
life  ring  in  the  body  much  longer  than  is  commonly 
supposed  ;  that  for  a  while  it  is  full  of  the  reminiscences 
of  life.  Out  of  this  we  may  explain  how  it  so  frequently 
comes  to  pass,  that  all  which  marked  the  death-struggle 
passes  presently  away,  and  the  true  image  of  the  departed, 
the  image  it  may  be  of  years  long  before,  reappears  in 
perfect  calmness  and  in  almost  ideal  beauty.  All  this 
being  so,  we  shall  at  once  recognize  in  the  quickening  of 
him  that  had  been  four  days  dead  (John  xi.  17),  a  yet 
mightier  wonder  than  in  the  raising  of  the  young  man 
who  was  borne  out  to  his  burial  (Luke  vii.  12)  ;  whose 
burial,  according  to  Jewish  custom,  will  have  followed 
death  by  an  interval,  at  most,  of  a  single  day  ;  and  again 
in  that  miracle  a  mightier  outcommg  of  Christ's  power 


JAIRUS'  DAUGHTER.  199 

than  in  tlie  present,  wherein  life's  flame,  like  some  newly- 
extinguished  taper,  was  still  more  easily  re-kindled,  when 
thus  brought  in  contact  with  Him  who  is  the  fountain- 
flame  of  all  life.  Immeasurably  more  stupendous  than  all 
these,  will  be  the  wonder  of  that  hour,  when  all  the  dead 
of  old,  who  will  have  lain,  some  of  them  for  many  thousand 
years,  in  the  dust  of  death,  shall  be  summoned  from  and 
shall  leave  their  graves  at  the  same  quickening  voice 
(John  V.  28,  29). 


7.    THE  SEALING    OF    THE   WOMAN  WITH  AN  ISSUE 
OF  BLOOD. 

Matt.  ix.  20-22;  Maek  v.  25-34.;  Lttke  viii.  43-48. 

IN  all  three  accounts  wliicli  we  have  of  this  miracle,  it  is 
mixed  np  with  that  other  of  the  raising  of  Jairus' 
daughter,  and  cuts  that  narrative  in  two.  Such  overflowing 
grace  is  in  Him,  the  Prince  of  life,  that  as  He  is  hastening 
to  accomplish  one  work  of  power,  He  accomplishes  another, 
as  by  the  way.  '  His  obiter,^  in  FuUer's  words,  *  is  more  to 
the  purpose  than  our  iter ; '  his  irdpspyov,  one  might  add, 
than  our  £^701^.  To  the  second  and  third  Evangelists  we 
owe  the  most  distinctive  features  of  this  miracle.  St. 
Matthew  relates  it  so  briefly,  and  passes  over  circumstances 
so  material,  that,  had  we  not  the  parallel  records,  we 
should  miss  much  of  the  instruction  which  it  contains. 
But  doubtless  it  was  intended,  if  not  by  their  human 
penmen,  yet  by  their  Divine  author,  that  the  several 
Gospels  should  thus  mutually  complete  one  another. 

The  Lord  had  consented  to  follow  Jairus  to  his  house, 
*  and  much  people  thronged  Him  and  pressed  Him,'  curious, 
no  doubt,  to  witness  what  the  issue  would  be,  and  whether 
He  could  indeed  raise  the  dying  or  dead  child ;  for  to  no 
less  a  work,  thus  going,  He  seemed  in  a  manner  pledged. 
But  if  thus  with  most,  it  was  not  so  with  all.  Mingled 
with  and  confounded  in  that  crowd  eager  to  behold  some 
new  thing,  was  '  a  certain  woman,^  which  had  an  issue  of 

^  A  sennon,  wrongly  attributed  to  St.  Ambrose,  makes  this  woman  to 
have  been  Martha,  the  sister  of  Lazarus ;  the  Gospel  of  Kicodetmis  (Thilo, 
Co}.  Apoa-yph.  Tol.  i.  p.  s(>^\  Veronica.     There  is  a  sfcjrange  story  fuJl 


THE    WOMAN   WITH  AN  ISSUE   OF  BLOOD.    201 

hlood  twelve  years,  ayul  had  suffered  many  things  of  many 
physicians,  and  had  spent  all  that  she  had,  and  was  nothing 
bettered,  hut  rather  grew  worse.' ^  This  •woman,  afflicted  so 
long,  who  had  suffered  much  from  her  disease,  perhaps 
more  from  her  physicians,'^  all  whose  means  had  been 
consumed  in  costly  remedies  and  in  the  vain  quest  of  some 
cure,  '  when  she  had  heard  of  Jesus,  came  in  the  press  behind, 
and  touched  his  garment ;  for  she  said,  If  I  may  touch  but 
his  clothes,  I  shall  he  whole.'  Her  faith,  who  so  argued,  was 
most  real ;  we  have  the  Lord's  own  testimony  to  this  ('  thy 
faith  hath  saved  thee ')  ;  while  yet  her  conception  of  the 
manner  of  the  working  of  Christ's  healing  power  was  a 
material  conception  and  not  unmingled  with  error.  He 
healed,  as  she  must  have  supposed,  by  no  power  of  his 
holy  will,  but  rather  by  a  certain  magical  influence  and 
virtue  which  dwelt  in  Him,  and  which  He  diffused  round 
about  Him.  If  she  could  put  herself  in  relation  with  this, 
she  would  obtain  all  that  she  desired.^     It  is  possible  too 

of  inexplicable  difficulties,  told  by  Eusebius  (ITtd.  Eccl.  vii.  18),  of  a 
statue,  or  rather  two  statues,  in  brass,  one  of  Christ,  another  of  this 
•woman  kneeling  to  Ilim,  ■which  existed  in  his  time  at  Ctesarea  Paneas, 
and  which,  according  to  tradition,  had  been  raised  by  her  in  thankful 
commemoration  of  her  healing:  see  the  loth  excursus  in  the  Annotations 
(Oxford,  1842)  to  Dr.  Burton's  Eusebius.  The  belief  that  these  statues 
did  refer  to  this  event  was  so  widely  spread  as  to  cause  Julian,  in  his 
hatred  against  all  memorials  of  Christianity,  or  according  to  others, 
Maximinus,  to  destroy  them.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  group, 
capable  of  being  made  to  signify  this  event,  was  there,  for  Eusebius 
speaks  as  having  himself  seen  it ;  but  the  correctness  of  the  application 
is  far  more  questionable.  Justin  Martyr's  mistake  of  a  statue  erected  at 
Kome  to  a  Sabine  deity  (Semoni  Sanco)  for  one  erected  in  honour  of 
Simon  Magus,  shows  how  little  critical  the  early  Christians  sometimes 
were  in  matters  of  this  kind  (see  Deyling,  Obss.  Sac.  vol.  i.  p.  279; 
Muretus,  Epistt.  1.  3,  ep.  75).  Even  Jeremy  Taylor,  with  all  his  un- 
critical allowance  of  legends,  finds  this  one  incredible  {Life  of  Christ, 
part  ii.  sect.  12,  §  20). 

^  The  apocryphal  report  of  Pilate  to  Tiberius  forcibly  paints  her  ex- 
treme emaciation,  w?  ncinav  Tt'iv  rail'  oariujv  apfiovUtv  ijiou'irrf^ai,  Kal  i'iXov 
Siicrfv  ^lavyal^tiv  (Thilo,  Cod.  Apocryph.  vol.  i,  p.  808). 

^  See  Lightfoot  {Hor.  Heb.  in  Marc.  v.  26)  for  an  extraordinary  list 
of  remedies  in  use  for  this  disorder. 

'  She  partook,  as  Grotius  well  remarks,  in  the  notion  of  the  philoso- 
phers, Deum  agere  omnia  (piait,  ov  /SouX/ytrt  1. 


202  THE  HEALING   OF  THE   WOMAN 

that  she  *  touched  the  hem  of  his  garment '  (cf.  Mark  vi.  36), 
not  merely  as  its  uttermost  part,  that  therefore  which  she, 
timidly  drawing  near,  could  most  easily  reach,  hut  as 
attributing  a  peculiar  sanctity  to  it.  For  this  hem,  or  blue 
fringe  on  the  borders  of  the  garment,  was  put  there  by 
divine  command,  and  served  to  remind  the  Jewish  wearer 
of  the  special  relation  to  God  in  which  he  stood  (Num.  xv. 
37-40;  Deut.  xxii.  12).  Those,  therefore,  who  would  fain 
persuade  the  world  that  they  desired  never  to  have  this 
out  of  their  remembrance,  were  wont  to  make  broad,  or  to 
*  enlarge,  the  borders  of  their  garments '  (Matt,  xxiii.  5). 
But  the  faith  of  this  woman,  though  thus  imperfect  in  its 
form,  and  though  it  did  not,  like  a  triumphant  flood-tide, 
bear  her  over  the  peculiar  difficulties  which  beset  her,  a 
woman,  coming  to  acknowledge  a  need  such  as  hers,  was 
yet  in  its  essence  most  true.  It  obtained,  therefore,  what 
it  sought ;  it  was  the  channel  to  her  of  the  blessing  which 
she  desired.  No  sooner  had  she  touched  the  hem  of  his 
robe  than  *  she  felt  in  her  body  that  she  was  healed  of  that 
plague.'  * 

The  boon  which  she  had  gotten  she  would  hare  carried 
away  in  secret,  if  she  might.  But  this  was  not  so  to  be. 
For  '  Jesus,  immediately  hnowing  in  Himself  that  virtue  had 
gone  out  of  Him,  turned  Him  about  in  the  "press,  and  said.  Who 
touched  my  clothes  ?  '  The  Evangelists  employ  language 
which  in  a  measure  falls  in  with  the  current  of  the  woman's 
thoughts;  yet  we  cannot  for  an  instant  suppose  that 
healing  power  went  forth  from  the  Lord  without  the  full 
consent  of  his  will,'' — that  we  have  here,  on  his  part,  an 
unconscious   or  involuntary  healing,  any   more   than   on 

*  'Atto  Tj/t;  finnriyog,  scil.  Qfov,  siiice  disease  must  ever  be  regarded  as 
the  scourge  of  God,  not  always  of  personal  sin,  but  ever  of  the  sin  which 
the  one  has  in  common  with  all;  cf.  2  Mace.  ix.  11,  Btia  fidan^,  and 
Ecclus.  xl.  9.  So  ^schylus  (Sept,  adv.  Theb.),  iry^tiyiig  9foi»  ndartyi. 
The  word  plague  (irXiiyi),  plaga)  is  itself  a  witness  for  this  truth. 

'^  Chrysostom :  nap'  iKoPTOS  tXaj^t  Ttjv  auTtipiav,  Kai  oil  irup'  aKovroe 
V^ft  yap  Tt)p  u\p<ifiiv>]v. 


WTTir  AN-  ISSUE   OF  BLOOD.  203 

another  occasion,  when  we  read  that  '  the  whole  multi- 
tude sought  to  touch  Him,  for  there  went  virtue  out 
of  Him,  and  healed  them  all'  (Luke  vi.  19).  For  if 
power  went  forth  from  Him  to  heal,  without  reference, 
on  his  part,  to  the  spiritual  condition  of  the  person 
that  was  its  subject,  the  ethical,  which  is  ever  the  most 
important  part  of  the  miracle,  would  at  once  disappear. 
But  He  who  saw  Nathanael  under  the  fig-tree  (John  i. 
48),  who  '  needed  not  that  any  should  testify  of  man, 
for  He  knew  what  was  in  man '  (John  ii.  25),  must 
have  known  of  this  woman  how  sorely  in  her  body  she 
requu'ed  his  help,  and  how  in  her  spirit  she  possessed  that 
faith  which  was  the  one  channel  of  communication  between 
Him  and  any  human  need.  Nor  may  his  question,  '  Who 
touched  my  clothes  ? '  be  urged  as  implying  that  He  was 
ignorant  who  had  so  done,  and  only  obscurely  apprehended 
that  something  had  taken  place.  It  was  asked,  as  the  sequel 
abundantly  proves,  with  quite  another  purpose  than  this. 
Had  she  succeeded  in  carrying  away  in  secret  that  good 
which  she  had  gotten,  it  would  have  failed  to  be  at  all  that 
excellent  gift  to  her  which  her  Saviour  intended  that  it 
should  be.  For  this  it  was  needfiil  that  she  should  be 
drawn  from  her  hiding-place,  and  compelled  to  avouch 
both  what  she  had  sought,  and  what  had  found,  of  help 
and  healing  from  Him.  With  as  little  force  can  it  be 
urged  that  it  would  have  been  inconsistent  with  absolute 
truth  for  the  Lord  to  profess  ignorance,  and  to  ask  the 
question  which  He  did  ask,  if  all  the  while  He  perfectly 
knew  what  He  thus  seemed  implicitly  to  say  that  He  did  not 
know.  A  father  coming  among  his  children,  and  demand- 
ing, Who  committed  this  fault?  himself  conscious,  even 
while  lie  asks,  but  at  the  same  time  willing  to  bring  the 
culprit  to  a  free  confession,  and  so  to  put  him  in  a  pardon- 
able state,  does  he  in  any  way  violate  the  laws  of  highest 
truth?  The  same  offence  might  be  found  in  Elisha's 
*  Whence  comest  thou,  Gehazi  ?  '  (2  Kin.  v.  25),  when  his 
14 


204  THE  HEALING   OF  THE   WOMAN 

heart  went  with  his  servant  all  the  way  that  he  had  gone ; 
and  even  in  the  question  of  God  Himself  to  Adam,  'Where 
art  thou?  '  (Gen.  iii.  9),  and  to  Cain,  '  Where  is  Abel  thy 
brother?'  (Gen.  iv.  9).  In  every  case  there  is  a  moral 
purpose  in  the  question, — an  opportunity  given  at  the 
latest  moment  for  a  partial  making  good  of  the  error  by 
its  unreserved  confession,  an  opportunity  which  they  whose 
examples  have  been  here  adduced,  suffered  to  escape ;  but 
which  this  woman  had  grace  given  her  to  use. 

But  this  question  itself,  '  Who  touched  my  clothes  ? '  or  as 
it  is  in  St.  Luke,  '  Who  touched  Me  ? '  when  indeed  the 
whole  multitude  was  rudely  pressing  upon  and  crowding 
round  Him,  may  suggest,  and  has  suggested,  some  profit- 
able reflections.  Out  of  that  thronging  multitude  one  only 
*  touched '  with  the  touch  of  faith.  She  can  scarcely  have 
been  the  only  sick  and  suffering  one  in  all  that  multitude ; 
there  may  very  well  have  been  others  there  with  complaints 
as  inveterate  as  hers ;  but  these,  though  as  near  or  nearer 
in  body,  yet  lacked  that  faith  which  would  have  been  the 
coiinecting  link  between  Christ's  power  and  their  need  ;  and 
thus  they  crowded  upon  Him,  but  did  not  touch  Him,  did 
not  so  touch  that  virtue  went  forth  from  Him  on  them.  It 
is  evermore  thus  in  his  Church.  Many  *  throng '  Christ ; 
his  in  name ;  near  to  Him  outwardly ;  in  actual  contact 
with  the  sacraments  and  ordinances  of  his  Church ;  yet  not 
touching  Him,  because  not  drawing  nigh  in  faith,  not  look- 
ing for,  and  therefore  not  obtaining,  life  and  healing  from 
Him,  and  through  these.^ 

^  Augustine  (Serm.  Ixii.  4) :  Quasi  enim  sic  ambularet,  ut  a  nullo 
prorsus  corpore  tangeretur,  ita  dicit,  Quis  me  tetigit  ?  Et  illi,  Turbae  te 
comprimunt.  Et  tanquam  diceret  Dominus,  Tangentem  quaero,  non  pre- 
nientem.     Sic  etiam  nunc  est  coi-pus  ejus,  id  est,  Ecclesia  ejus.     Taugit 

earn  fides  paucorum,  premit  turba  multorum Caro  enim  premit, 

fides  taugit ;  and  again  (iSerm.  Ixxvii.  4) :  Corpus  ergo  Christi  multi 
moleste  premunt,  pauci  salubriter  tanguut.  Elsewhere  he  makes  her 
the  sjTnbol  of  all  the  faithful  (Serm.  ccxlv.  3)  :  llli  premunt,  ista  tetigit; 
Judffii  aiiligunt,  Ecclesia  credidit ;  cf.  Gregory  the  Great,  Mural,  iii.  20 ; 
XX.  17.     Chrysostoni  has  the  same  antithesis:  'O  TriaTivtov  tic  riv  ^wrt'ipa 

uTTTerat    avroii'   o   St    diriarw)'   OXlfSii   aifrhi'   Kai    Xvirtl.      ChemnitZ    (^Hatin. 

Evung.  67) :  Ita  quoque  in  Ecclesia  niulti  Christo  approximant,  externia 


WITH  AN  ISSUE   OF  BLOOD.  205 

The  disciples,  and  Peter  as  their  spokesman,  wonder  at 
the  question,  and  a  certain  sense  of  the  unreason  of  it  as 
it  presents  itself  to  them,  marks  their  reply :  *  Tliou  seest 
the  multitude  thronging  Thee,  and  say  est  Thou,  Who  touched 
Me?'  He,  however,  re-affirms  the  fact,  *  Somebody  hath 
touched  Me ;  for  I  ferceive  that  virtue  is  gone  out  of  Me.* 
And  now  the  woman,  perceiving  that  any  furtlier  attempt 
at  concealment  was  useless,  that  to  repeat  the  denial  which 
she  probably  had  made  with  the  rest,  for  *  all  denied  '  (Luke 
viii.  45),  would  profit  her  nothing;  unable,  too,  to  escape 
his  searching  glance,  for  *  He  looJced  round  about  to  see  her ' 
(Mark  v.  32),  'came  trembling,  and  falling  down  before  Him, 
she  declared  unto  Him,'  and  this  'before  all  the  people,  for 
what  cause  she  had  touched  Him,  and  how  she  was  healed  im- 
mediately.'  Olshausen  traces  very  beautifully  the  grace 
which  reigns  in  this  miracle,  and  in  the  order  of  the  cir- 
cumstances of  it.  This  woman  would  have  borne  away  a 
maimed  blessing,  hardly  a  blessing  at  all,  had  she  been 
suffered  to  bear  it  away  in  secret  and  unacknowledged,  and 
without  being  brought  into  any  personal  communion  with 
her  Healer.  She  hoped  to  remain  in  concealment  out  of 
a  shame,  which,  however  natural,  was  untimely  in  this  the 
crisis  of  her  spiritual  life ;  but  this  hope  of  hers  is  gra- 
ciously defeated.  Her  heavenly  Healer  draws  her  from 
the  concealment  she  would  have  chosen ;  but  even  here,  so 
far  as  possible,  He  spares  her ;  for  not  before,  but  after  she 
is  healed,  does  He  require  the  open  confession  from  her  lips, 
She  might  have  foimd  it  perhaps  altogether  too  hard,  had 
He  demanded  this  of  her  before  :  but,  waiting  till  the  cure 
is  accomplished.  He  helps  her  through  the  narrow  way. 

auribus  verbum  salutis  accipiunt,  ore  fiuo  sacramentum  corporis  et  sau- 
guiuia  ipsius  manducant  et  bibunt,  nullam  tamen  efficaciam  ex  eo  perci- 
piunt,  nee  sentiunt  fluxuni  ilium  peccatorura  suorum  eisti  et  exsiccari. 
Unde  illud  ?  Quia  destituuntur  vera  fide,  C[U8e  sole  ex  hoc  foute  haurit 
gi'atiam  pro  gratia. 


206  THE  HEALING   OF  THE    WOMAN 

Altogether  spare  lier  this  painful  passage  He  could  not,  for 
it  pertained  to  her  birth  into  the  new  life.^ 

And  now  He  dismisses  her  with  words  of  gracious  en- 
couragement :  *  Daughter f  he  of  good  comfort ;  thy  faith  hath 
made  thee  whole '^  (Luke  vii.  50  ;  xvii.  19;  xviii.  42).  Her 
faith  had  made  her  whole,  and  Christ's  virtue  had  made 
her  whole.'  Not  otherwise  we  say  that  we  are  justified  by- 
faith,  and  justified  by  Christ ;  faith  not  being  itself  the 
blessing ;  but  the  organ  by  which  the  blessing  is  received  ; 
the  right  hand  of  the  soul,  which  lays  hold  on  Him  and  on 
his  righteousness.  *  Go  in  peace ;'  this  is  not  merely,  *  Go 
with  a  blessing,*  but,  *  Enter  into  peace,  as  the  element 
in  which  thy  future  life  shall  move ; — and  he  whole  of  thy 
•plague,* — which  promise  was  fulfilled  to  her;  for  Hhe 
woman  was  w.ade  whole  from  that  hour.* 

Theophylact  traces  a  mystical  meaning  in  this  miracle. 
The  complaint  of  this  woman  represents  the  ever-flowing 
fountain  of  sin ;  the  physicians  under  whom  she  was 
nothing  bettered,  the  world's  prophets  and  sages,  who, 
with  all  their  medicines,  their  religions  and  their  philoso- 
phies, prevailed  nothing  to  stanch  that  fountain  of  evil  in 
man's  heart.  To  touch  Christ's  garment  is  to  believe  in 
his  Incarnation,  wherein  He,  first  touching  us,  enabled  us 

^  Sedulius,  then,  has  exactly  missed  the  point  of  the  narrative,  when 
of  the  Lord  he  says, 

furtumque  fidele 

Laudat,  et  ingenuce  tribuit  sua  vota  rapince ; 

her  fault  lying  in  this,  that  she  sought  as  this  furtimi,  what  she  should 
have  claimed  openly :  and  no  less  St.  Bernard  (Z)e  Divers.  Serm.  xcix.), 
who  makes  her  the  figure  of  those  who  would  do  good  hiddenly,  avoiding 
all  human  applause:  Sunt  alii  qui  nonnulla  bona  occulte  faciunt,  sed 
tamen  furari  [regnum  cselorum]  dicuntur,  quia  laudem  humanam  vitantes, 
solo  divino  testimonio  contenti  sunt.  Horum  figuram  tenuit  mulier  in 
Evangelio,  &c.  Rather  she  is  the  figure  of  those  who  would  get  good 
hiddenly,  and  without  an  open  profession  of  their  faith,  who  believe  in 
their  hearts,  but  shrink  from  confessing  with  their  lips,  that  Jesus  Christ 
id  Lord,  forgetting  that  both  are  needful  (Rom.  x.  9). 

'  TertuUian,  Adv.  Marc.  iv.  20. . 

'  Her  faith,  vpyaviKwc,  Christ's  virtue,  ifipyi]TiKio5.  This,  as  the  causa 
efficiens ;  that,  as  the  conditio  sine  qua  non. 


WITH  AN  ISSUE   OF  BLOOD.  207 

also  to  toucli  Him  :  and  on  this  that  healing,  which  in  all 
those  other  things  had  been  vainly  sought,  follows  at  once. 
And  if  we  keep  in  mind  how  her  nncleanness  separated 
her  off  as  one  impure,  we  shall  have  here  an  exact  picture 
of  the  sinner,  drawing  nigh  to  the  throne  of  grace,  but  out 
of  the  sense  of  his  impurity  not  'with  boldness,'  rather 
with  fear  and  trembling,  hardly  knowing  what  there  he 
shall  expect;  but  who  is  welcomed  there,  and,  all  his 
carnal  doubtings  and  questionings  at  once  chidden  and 
expelled,  dismissed  with  the  word  of  an  abiding  peace 
resting  upon  him. 


8.    THE  OPENING   OF  THE  EYES  OF  TWO 
BLIND  IN  THE  HOUSE. 

Matx.  ix.  27-31. 

WE  have  here  the  first  of  those  many  healings  of  the 
blind  recorded  (Matt.  xii.  22;  xx.  30;  xxi.  14; 
John  ix.)  or  alluded  to  (Matt.  xi.  5  ;  Luke  vii.  21)  in  the 
Gospels ;  each  of  them  a  literal  fulfilment  of  that  prophetic 
word  of  Isaiah,  concerning  the  days  of  Messiah :  '  Then  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  shall  be  opened  *  (xxxv.  5).  Frequent  as 
these  miracles  are,  there  yet  will  not  one  of  them  be  found 
without  distinguishing  featm-es  of  its  own.  That  they 
should  be  so  numerous  is  nothing  wonderful,  whether  we 
regard  the  fact  from  a  natural  or  a  spiritual  point  of  view. 
Eegarded  naturally,  their  number  need  not  surprise  us,  if 
we  keex?  in  mind  how  far  commoner  a  calamity  is  blindness 
in  the  East  than  with  us.'  Eegarded  from  a  spiritual  point 
of  view,  we  need  only  remember  liow  constantly  sin  is  con- 
templated in  Scripture  as  a  moral  blindness  (Dent,  xxviii. 

^  For  this  there  are  many  causes.  The  dust  and  flying  sand,  pulverized 
and  reduced  to  minutest  particles,  enters  the  eyes,  causing  inflammations 
■which,  being  neglected,  end  frequently  in  total  loss  of  sight.  The  sleeping 
in  the  open  air,  on  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  and  the  consequent  exposure  of 
the  eyes  to  the  noxious  nightly  dews,  is  another  source  of  this  malady.  A 
modem  traveller  calculates  that  there  are  four  thousand  blind  in  Cairo 
alone ;  and  Palgrave,  writing  of  the  diseases  of  Arabia  (Journey  through 
Arabia,  vol.  ii.  p.  34)  has  these  observations :  *  Ophthalmia  is  fearfully 
prevalent,  and  goes  on  unchecked  in  many  instances  to  the  worst  results. 
It  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  one  adult  out  of  every  five  haa 
his  eyes  more  or  less  damaged  by  the  consequences  of  this  disease.'  In 
Syria,  it  is  true,  the  proportion  of  blind  is  not  at  all  so  great,  yet  there 
also  the  calamity  is  far  commoner  than  iu  western  lands ;  so  that  we  find 
humane  regulations  concerning  the  blind,  as  a  class,  in  the  Law  (Lev. 
xix.  14;  Deut.  xxvii.  18). 


OPENING   THE  EYES   OF  TWO  BLIND.        209 

29 ;  Isai.  lix.  10;  Job  xii.  25  ;  Zeph.  i.  17),  and  deliverance 
from  sin  as  a  removal  of  this  blindness  (Isai.  xxix.  1 8  ;  xlii. 
18  ;  xliii.  8  ;  Epbes.  i.  8  ;  Matt.  xv.  14);  at  once  to  perceive 
how  well  it  became  Him  who  was  '  the  Light  of  the  world ' 
often  to  accomplish  works  which  symbolized  so  well  that 
higher  work  of  illumination  which  He  came  into  the  world 
to  falfil. 

*  And  when  Jesus  departed  thence  * — from  the  house  of 
Jairus,  Jerome  supposes ;  but  too  much  stress  must  not  be 
laid  on  the  connexion  in  which  St.  Matthew  sets  the  mi- 
racle, nor  the  conclusion  certainly  drawn  that  he  intended 
to  place  it  in  such  immediate  relation  of  time  and  place 
with  that  other  which  he  had  just  told — '  two  hlind  men  fol- 
lowed Him,  crying  and  saying,  Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy 
on  us.'  In  that '  Son  of  David '  they  recognize  Him  as  the 
promised  Messiah  (Matt.  xxi.  9 ;  xxii.  42  ;  cf.  Ezek.  xxxiv. 
23,  34).  But  their  faith  must  not  stop  short  in  this  mere 
confession  of  Him  ;  it  must  be  further  tried  ;  and  the  Lord 
proceeds  to  try  it,  though  not  so  rudely  as  He  tried  that  of 
the  Syrophoenician  woman  at  a  later  day.  Not  all  at  once 
do  they  obtain  their  petition ;  the  Lord  seeming  at  first 
rather  to  withdraw  Himself  from  them,  suffering  them  to 
cry  after  Him,  and  for  a  while  paying  no  regard  to  their 
cries.  It  is  only  '  when  He  was  come  into  the  house,'  and  *  the 
hlind  men  came  to  Him '  there,  so  testifying  the  earnestness 
of  their  desires  and  the  faith  of  their  hearts,  that  He  yields 
to  them  the  blessing  which  they  sought.^  He  must  obtain 
too,  ere  that  may  be,  a  further  confession  from  their  own 
lips  :  '  Believe  ye  that  I  am  able  to  do  this  ? '  And  it  is 
only  after  they,  by  their  '  Yea,  Lord'  have  avouched  that 
they  had  faith  to  be  healed,  that  the  blessing  is  theirs. 
Then  indeed  '  He  touched  their  eyes'  and  that  simple  touch 
was  enough,  unsealing  as  it  did  for  them  the  closed  organs 

'  Calvin :  Re  igitur  et  verbis  examinare  voluit  eorum  fidem :  sus- 
peiisos  euim  tenens,  imo  prseteriens  quasi  non  exaudiat,  patientije 
ipsoruni  ex[  erimentuni  capit,  et  qualem  in  ipsorum  animis  radicem 
eg'erit  tides. 


210        OPENING   THE  EYES   OF  TWO  BLIND. 

of  vision  (cf.  Matt.  xx.  34).  On  other  occasions  He  uses 
as  conductors  of  his  power,  and  helps  to  the  faith  of  those 
•who  should  be  healed,  some  further  means, — the  clay 
mingled  with  spittle  (John  ix.  6,  7),  or  the  moisture  of  his 
mouth  alone  (Mark  viii.  23).  We  nowhere  read  of  his 
opening  the  blind  eyes  simply  by  his  word,  although  this 
of  course  lay  equally  within  the  range  of  his  power.  The 
words  which  accompany  the  act  of  grace, '  According  to  your 
faith  he  it  unto  you,*  are  instructive  for  the  insight  they 
give  us  into  the  relation  of  man's  faith  and  God's  gift.  The 
faith,  which  in  itself  is  nothing,  is  yet  the  organ  for  re- 
ceiving everything.  It  is  the  conducting  link  between 
man's  emptiness  and  God's  fulness  ;  and  herein  is  all  the 
value  which  it  has.  It  is  the  bucket  let  down  into  the 
fountain  of  God's  grace,  without  which  the  man  could  never 
draw  water  of  life  from  the  wells  of  salvation ;  for  the  wells 
are  deep,  and  of  himself  man  has  nothing  to  draw  with. 
It  is  the  purse,  which  cannot  of  itself  make  its  owner  rich, 
and  yet  effectually  enriches  him  by  the  treasure  which  it 
contains.^ 

'And  Jesus  straitly  charged  them,  saying,  See  that  no  man 
know  it^  (cf.  Mark  v.  43  ;  Matt.  xvii.  9).  'But  they,  when 
they  were  departed,  spread  abroad  his  fame  in  all  that 
country.'  It  is  very  characteristic,  and  rests  on  very 
profound  differences  between  Eoman  Catholics  and 
ourselves,  that  of  these  interpreters  almost  all — I  am 
aware  of  no  single  exception — applaud  rather  than  con- 
demn these  men  for  not  adhering  strictly  to  Christ's 
command,  his  earnest,  almost  threatening,'  injunction  of 

^  Faith,  the  opyavnt/  \i]TrriKov,  nothinpr  in  itself,  yet  everything  because 
it  places  us  in  living  connexion  with  Him  in  whom  every  good  gift  is 
stored.  Thus  on  this  passage  Chemnitz  (Harm.  Evang.  68):  Fides  est 
instar  haustri  gratise  caelestis  et  salutis  nostrse,  quo  ex  inscrutabili  et 
inexhausto  divinfe  misericordise  et  bonitatis  fonte,  ad  quem  aliter  pene- 
trare  non  possumus,  haurimus  et  ad  nos  attrahimus  quod  nobis  salutare 
est.  Calvin  {Inst.  iii.  11,  7) :  Fides  etiarasi  nullius  per  se  dignitatis  sit,  vel 
pretii,  nos  justificat,  Christum  afferendo,  sicut  olla  pecuniis  referta  homi.. 
nam  locupletat. 

'  'Evi^pifirjaaro    avToiQ.        Suidas    explains    ifi^pifia.a9ai  =  utTa    aTruXtji; 


OPENING   THE   EYES    OF  TWO  BLIND.       21 1 

silence  ; — that  the  teachers  in  that  Church  of  will- worship 
see  in  their  disobedience  the  irrepressible  overflowings  of 
grateful  hearts,  which,  as  such,  should  be  regarded  not  as 
a  fault,  but  a  merit.  Some,  alas  !  of  the  ancients,  Theo- 
phylact,  for  instance,  do  not  shrink  from  affirming  that 
the  men  did  not  disobey  at  all  in  publishing  the  miracle  ; 
that  Christ  never  intended  them  to  observe  his  precept 
about  silence,  but  gave  it  out  of  humility,  being  the  better 
pleased  that  it  was  not  observed.*  But  of  the  interpreters 
of  the  Reformed  Church,  whose  first  principle  is  to  take 
God's  Word  as  absolute  rule  and  law,  and  to  worship  Him 
not  with  self-devised  services,  but  after  the  pattern  which 
He  has  shown,  all  stand  fast  to  this,  that  obedience  is  better 
than  sacrifice,  even  though  the  sacrifice  be  intended  for 
God's  special  honour  (i  Sam.  xv.  21).  They  see,  therefore, 
in  this  publishing  of  the  miracle,  despite  of  Christ's  word 
to  the  contrary,  a  blemish  in  the  perfectness  of  their  faith 
who  thus  disobeyed ;  a  fault  which  remained  a  fault,  even 
while  they  recognize  it  as  one  which  only  grateful  hearts 
could  have  committed. 

tjTtXXtff^oi,  fitT  aiKTrt]o6TijTog  tTTiTijiav,  See  more  on  this  word  in  a  note 
on  the  raising  of  Lazarus. 

^  Thus  Aquinas  {Sutiun.  Theol.  2*  z®,  qu,  104,  art.  4):  Dominus  csecis 
dixit  ut  miraculuni  occultarent,  non  quasi  intendens  eos  per  virtutem 
divini  praecepti  obligare ;  sed  sicut  Gregorius  dicit  1 9  Moral,  servis  suis 
66  sequentibus  exemplum  dedit,  ut  ipsi  quidem  virtutes  suas  occultare 
desiderent,  et  tamen  ut  alii  eorum  exemplo  proficiant,  prodantur  iavitL 
Cf.  Maldonatus,  in  loe. 


9.  THE  HUALINO   OF  THE  PARALYTIC. 

^Iatt.  ix,  1-8  ;  Maek  ii.  1-12  ;  Luke  v.  17-26.* 

THE  account  of  St.  Luke  would  leave  us  altogetlier  in 
ignorance  where  this  miracle  of  healing  took  place ;  but 
from  St.  Matthew  we  learn  that  it  was  in  *  Ms  own  city' 
by  which  we  should  understand  Capernaum,  even  if  St. 
Mark  had  not  named  it,  for  as  Bethlehem  was  the  birth- 
place of  Christ,  and  Nazareth  his  nursing-place,  so  Caper- 
naum his  dwelling-place.  We  have  then  here  one  of  the 
*  mighty  works  '  with  which  at  a  later  day  He  upbraided 
that  greatly  favoured  but  impenitent  city  (Matt.  xi.  23). 
'  And  it  came  to  pass  on  a  certain  day  as  He  was  teaching, 
that  there  ivere  Pharisees  and  doctors  of  the  law  sitting  hy, 
which  were  come  out  of  every  town  of  Galilee,  and  Judcea, 
and  Jerusalem.'  It  may  have  been  a  conference,  more  or 
less  friendly  upon  the  part  of  these,  which  had  brought 
together  as  listeners  and  spectators  a  multitude  so  vast 
that  all  avenues  of  approach  to  the  house  were  blocked 
up  ;  '  there  was  no  room  to  receive  them,  no,  not  so  much  as 
about  the  door ;  '*  and  thus  for  later  comers  no  oppor- 
tunity, by  any  ordinary  way,  of  near  access  to  the  Lord 
(cf.  Matt.  xii.  46,  47).     Among  these  were  some  ^bringing 

'  Chrysostom  {vi  3IaUh.  Horn.  29)  warns  bis  hearers  against  the  con- 
founding of  this  miracle  of  healing  with  that  of  the  impotent  man  at 
Bethesda,  and  then  finding  discrepancies  between  the  one  narrative  and 
the  other.  The  confusion,  one  would  think,  is  so  little  likely  to  occur  as 
hardly  to  be  worth  the  complete  refutation  which  he  gives  it.  It  is 
found,  however,  in  the  apocryphal  Evangeliurn  Nicodaini  (see  Thilo,  Cod. 
Apocrt/ph.  vol.  i.  p.  556). 

'^  Ta  TTpof  n)v  Ovpav,  scil.  fiep7i  =  7rp66vpov,  vestibulum,  atrium. 


THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC.         213 

one  sick  of  the  palsy.*  Only  St.  Mark  records  for  us  tliat 
he  '  ivas  home  of  four ; '  lie  and  St.  Luke  the  novel  method 
which  they  took  to  bring  him  whom  they  bore  within  that 
circle  of  healing  of  which  the  Lord  was  the  living  centre : 

*  When  they  could  not  come  nigh  unto  Him  for  the  press,  they 
uncovered  the  roof  ivhere  He  was  j  and  when  they  had  broken 
it  up,  they  let  down  the  hed  wherein  the  sick  of  the  palsy  lay.* 
They  first  ascended  to  the  roof;  for,  in  Fuller's  words, 

*  love  will  creep,  but  faith  will  climb,  where  it  cannot  go  ; ' 
yet  this  was  not  so  difficult,  because  commonly  there  was 
a  flight  of  steps  on  the  outside  of  the  house,  reaching  to 
the  roof;  in  addition  to,  or  sometimes  instead  of,  an  in- 
ternal communication  of  the  same  kind.  Such  every 
traveller  in  those  parts  of  southern  Spain  which  bear  a 
permanent  im^^ress  of  Eastern  habits  will  have  seen.  Our 
Lord  assumes  such  when  He  gives  this  counsel,  '  Let  him 
which  is  on  the  housetop  not  come  down  to  take  any  thing 
out  of  his  house '  (Matt.  xxiv.  17),  he  shall  take  the  nearest 
and  shortest  way  of  escaping  into  the  country :  but  he 
could  only  avoid  the  necessity  of  descending  through  the 
house  by  the  existence  of  such  steps  as  these.'  Some  will 
have  it  that  the  bearers,  having  thus  reached  the  roof,  let 
down  their  sick  through  the  grating  or  trap-door,  already 
existing  there  (cf.  2  Kin.  i.  2),  or  at  most,  enlarged  such 
an  aj)erture,  till  it  would  allow  the  passage  of  their  sick 
man  and  his  bed.  Others,^  that  Jesus  was  sitting  in  the 
open  court,  round  which  an  Eastern  house  commonly  is 

^  The  same  must  have  existed  in  a  Roman  house.  A  -svitness,  whom 
it  is  important  to  preserve  from  being  tampered  with,  is  shut  up  in  the 
chamher  adjoining  the  roof  (coenaculum  super  sedes), — and,  to  make  all 
sure,  scalis  ferentibus  in  publicum  obseratis,  aditu  in  aedes  verso  (Li^'y, 
xxxix.  14;  cf.  Becker,  Gullus,  vol.  i.  p.  94). 

*  Shaw,  for  instance,  quoted  by  Rosenmiiller  {Alte  mid  Neue  Morgen- 
land,  vol.  v.  p.  129).  He  makes  to  ^kaov  to  signify  the  central  court, 
impluvium,  cava  sedium.  And  so,  too,  Titus  Bostrensis  (in  Cramer's 
Catena):  Ei-ci  S'  dv  ng  inrai!pov  tlvai  tottov,  tig  ov  Sia  rSiv  Kipaixuv 
KartlSiliaaav  n)v  K\'trriv  rov  irapaXurov,  n>]civ  TravriXCjg  rt'jf;  ff-kytjg  dvarpi- 
yjjavTtg.  But  against  this  use  of  tig  to  fikaov,  or  rather  for  the  common 
one,  see  Luke  iv,  35  ;  Mark  iii.  3  ;  xiv.  60. 


214         THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC. 

built ;  that  to  this  they  obtained  access  by  the  roof,  and 
having  broken  through  the  breast-work  or  battlement 
(Deut.  xxii.  8)  made  of  tiles,  which  guarded  the  roof,  and 
withdrawn  the  linen  awning  which  was  stretched  over  the 
court,  let  down  their  burden  in  the  midst.  But  all  this  is 
without  necessity  and  without  warrant.  St.  Mark  can 
mean  nothing  else  than  that  a  portion  of  the  actual  roof 
was  removed,  and  so  the  bed  on  which  the  palsied  man 
lay  let  down  before  the  Lord.'  This  will  seem  less 
strange,  if  only  we  keep  in  mind  that  in  all  likelihood  an 
upper  chamber  {u-rrspcoov)  was  the  scene  of  this  miracle. 
This,  as  the  most  retired  (2  Kin.  iv.  10,  LXX;  Acts  ix. 
37),  and  often  the  largest  room  in  the  house,  extending 
over  its  whole  area,  was  much  used  for  purposes  such  as 
now  drew  the  Lord  and  his  hearers  together  ^  (Acts  i.  13  ; 
XX.  8). 

He  who  never  takes  ill  that  faith  which  brings  men  to 
Him,  but  only  the  unbelief  which  keeps  them  from  Him,  is 
in  nothing  offended  at  this  interruption ;  yea,  rather 
beheld  with  an  eye  well  pleased  the  boldness  of  this  act  of 
theirs  :  *  Jesus,  seeing  their  faith,  said  unto  the  sick  of  the 
•palsy.  Son,  be  of  good  cheer  ;  thy  sins  he  forgiven  ^  thee  ;  '  or 
as  it  is  in  St.  Luke,  '  Man,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee.' 
But  as  He  addresses  another  sorrowful  soul,  *  Daughter, 
be  of  good  comfort '  (Matt.  ix.  22),  probably  the  tenderer 
appellation  here  also  found  place.  Had  we  only  the  ac- 
count of  St.  Matthew,  we  might  be  at  a  loss  to  understand 
wherein  their  special  faith  consisted,  or  why  their  faith, 

^  So  Winer,  Realicorterhuch,  s.  v.  Dach;  De  Wette,  Archdologie,  p. 
118,  sqq. 

^  Vitringa,  De  Synag.  p.  145,  sqq. 

'  'AqitwvToi  (cf.  Luke  vii.  48  ;  i  John  ii.  12):  the  old  grammarians  are 
not  at  one  in  the  explanation  of  this  form.  Some  make  it  =  d /  wrrat,  2 
aor,  conj.,  as  in  Homer  d^tj/  for  d^y.  But  others  more  rightly  explain  it 
as  the  praeter.  indie,  pass.  =  dmvTai ;  though  of  these  again  some  find  in 
it  an  Attic,  others,  more  correctly,  a  Doric  form:  cf.  Herodotus,  ii.  165, 
ai'ioii'Tai.  This  perfect  passive  will  then  stand  in  connexion  with  the 
perfect  active  d^ftoKa  for  dftiKa  (Winer,  Grammatik,  p.  77). 


THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PAEALYTIC.        215 

more  ilian  that  of  many  others  who  brought  their  sick  to 
Jesus  (cf.  Mark  vi.  55,  56 ;  vii.  32),  should  have  been 
noted  ;  but  the  other  Evangelists  explain  what  he  has  left 
obscure.  From  them  we  learn  that  it  was  a  faith  which 
overcame  hindrances,  and  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  by 
difficulties.*  *  Their  faith*  is  not,  as  Jerome  and  Ambrose 
understand  it,  the  faith  of  the  bearers  only.  To  them  the 
praise  justly  was  due;'^  but  the  sick  man  must  have  ap- 
proved what  they  did,  or  it  would  not  have  been  done : 
and  Chrysostom,  with  more  reason,  affirms  that  it  was 
alike  their  faith  and  his,  and  his  more  eminently  even 
than  theirs,'  which  the  Lord  saw,  approved,  and  re- 
warded. 

In  what  follows  we  have  a  beautiful  example  of  the  way 
in  which  the  Giver  of  all  good  things  gives  before  we  ask, 
and  better  than  we  ask.  This  poor  suppliant  had  as  yet 
asked  nothing ;  save,  indeed,  in  the  dumb  asking  of  that 
earnest  effort  to  come  near  to  the  Lord ;  and  all  that  in 
that  he  dared  to  ask,  certainly  all  that  his  friends  and 
bearers  sought  for  him,  was  that  he  might  be  healed  of 
his  palsy.  Yet  in  him,  no  doubt,  there  was  a  deep  feeling 
of  the  root  out  of  which  all  sickness  grows,  namely,  out  of 
sin ;  perhaps  in  his  own  sickness  he  recognized  the  penalty 
of  some  especial  sin  whereof  his  conscience  accused  him.* 
*  Son,  be  of  good  cheer,  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,'  are  words 
addressed  to  one  evidently  burdened  with  a  more  intoler- 
able weight  than  that  of  his  bodily  infirmities.  Some 
utterance  upon  his  part  of  a  penitent  and  contrite  heart 

^  Bengel:  Per  omnia  fides  ad  Christum  penetrat.  Gerhard  {Harm' 
JSvanff.  43):  Pictura  est,  quomodo  in  tentatiouibus  et  calamitatibus 
ad  Christum  nobis  conentur  intercludei'e  hominum  judicia,  quales 
fuerunt  amici  Jobi,  et  qui  Ps.  iii.  3  dicunt :  Non  est  salus  ipsi  in  Deo 
ejus.  Item:  Legis  judicium  et  proprise  conscientise  accusationes.  Et 
quomodo  per  ilia  omnia  fides  perrumpere  debeat,  ut  in  conspectum 
Christi  Mediatoris  se  demittat. 

'■*  TivtQ  TTiiTTorriToi,  &3  111  the  Evangelmtn  Nicodemi  they  are  called. 

'  Ou  -yup  av  Tii'ea-^iTo  \a\ao9iivaij  fii)  niffrivojv. 

*  Benprel:  Sine  dubio  magnus  erat  peccatorum  magnorum  sensus  in 
isto  homiue. 


2i6  THE   HEALING   OF   THE  PARALYTIC. 

may  very  probably  have  called  tbem  out.  In  other 
instances  the  forgiveness  of  sins  follows  tbe  outward  heal- 
ing ;  for  we  may  certainly  presume  that  sucli  a  forgiveness 
was  tbe  portion  of  the  thankful  Samaritan  (Luke  xvii.  19), 
of  the  impotent  man,  first  healed,  and  then  warned  to  sin 
no  more  (John  v.  14)  ;  but  here  the  remission  of  sin  takes 
the  precedence:  nor  is  it  hard  to  perceive  the  reason.  In 
the  sufferer's  own  conviction  there  existed  so  close  a  con- 
nexion between  his  sin  and  his  sickness,  that  the  bodily 
healing  would  have  been  scarcely  intelligible  to  him, 
would  have  hardly  brought  home  to  him  the  sense  of  a 
benefit,  unless  in  his  conscience  he  had  been  also  set  free  ; 
perhaps  he  was  incapable  even  of  receiving  the  benefit, 
till  the  message  of  peace  had  been  spoken  to  his  spirit. 
The  Epistle  of  St.  James  supplies  an  interesting  parallel 
(v.  14,  15),  where  the  same  inner  connexion  is  assumed 
between  the  raising  of  the  sick  and  the  forgiving  of  his 
sin.  Those  others,  with  a  slighter  sense  than  this  man  of 
the  relation  between  their  sin  and  their  suffering,  were 
not  first  forgiven  and  then  healed ;  but  thankfulness  for 
their  bodily  healing  first  made  them  receptive  of  that 
better  blessing,  the  '  grace  upon  grace,'  which  afterwards 
they  obtained. 

The  absolving  words  are  not  optative  only,  no  mere 
desire  that  so  it  might  be,  but  declaratory  that  so  it  was ; 
the  man's  sins  were  forgiven.  Nor  yet  were  they  declara- 
tory only  of  something  which  past  in  the  mind  and  inten- 
tion of  God ;  but,  even  as  the  words  were  spoken,  there 
was  shed  abroad  in  his  heart  the  sense  of  forgiveness  and 
reconciliation  with  God.  For  indeed  God's  justification 
of  a  sinner  is  not  merely  a  word  spoken  about  him,  but  a 
word  spoken  to  him  and  in  him  ;  not  an  act  of  God's  im- 
manent in  Himself,  but  transitive  upon  the  sinner.  In  it 
the  love  of  God,  and  with  the  love  the  consciousness  of 
that  love,  is  shed  abroad  in  his  heart  upon  whose  behalf 
the  absolving  decree  has  been  uttered  (Rom.  v.  5).     The 


TEE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC.        217 

niurmurers  and  cavillers  understood  rigMly  what  the  Lord 
meant  by  these  words;  that  He,  so  speaking,  did  not 
merely  wish  and  desire  that  this  man's  sins  might  be  for- 
given him ;  that  He  did  not,  as  the  Church  does  now,  in 
the  name  of  another  and  wielding  a  delegated  power,  but 
in  his  own  name,  forgive  him.  They  also  understood 
rightly  of  this  forgiveness  of  sins,  that  it  is  a  divine  pre- 
rogative ;  that,  as  no  man  can  remit  a  debt  save  he  to 
whom  it  is  due,  so  no  one  can  forgive  sin  save  He  against 
whom  all  sin  is  committed,  that  is,  God ;  and  out  of  this 
conviction,  most  true  in  itself,  but  most  false  in  their  pre- 
sent application  of  it,  '  certain  of  the  Scribes  sitting  there  ' 
said  within  themselves,  '  Why  doth  this  man  thus  si^ealc 
hlasjphemies  (cf.  Luke  vii.  49  ;  John  x.  33)  ?  Who  can  forgive 
sins  hut  God  only  ?  ' 

Olshausen  bids  us  note  here  the  profound  insight  into 
the  relations  between  God  and  the  creature,  involved  in 
the  scriptural  use  of  the  word  *  blasphemy ; '  a  use  of 
which  profane  antiquity  knew  nothing.  With  it  '  to 
blaspheme  '  meant  only  to  speak  evil  of  a  person  '  (a  use 
not  foreign  to  Scripture,  i  Cor.  iv.  13  ;  Tit.  iii.  2  ;  2  Pet. 
ii.  2  ;  Jud.  8),  and  then,  to  speak  something  of  an  evil, 
omen.  The  monotheistic  religion  alone  included  in  blas- 
phemy not  merely  words  of  cursing  and  outrage  against 
the  name  of  God,  but  all  snatchings  on  the  part  of  the 
creature  at  honours  which  of  right  belonged  only  to  the 
Creator  (Matt.  xxvi.  65;  John  x.  36).^  Had  He  who  in 
his  own  name  declared,  '  Thy  sins  he  forgiven  thee,''  been 
less  than  the  only-begotten  Son  of  the  Father,  the  sharer 
in  all  prerogatives  of  the  Godhead,  He  would  indeed  have 
spoken  blasphemies,  as  they  deemed.  Believing  Him 
only  a  man,  they  were  right  in  saying  He  blasphemed. 
Their  sin  was  not  in  this,  but  in  that  self-chosen  blind- 

'    UXaT^tjfieii'  as  opposed  to  tvipriixtlv. 

^  Bengel:  Blasphemia  est,  cum  I.  Deo  tribuuntur  indigna.  li.  Deo 
negantur  digna.  iir.  Dei  propria  communicantur  lis,  quibus  non  com- 
petunt. 


2i8         THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC. 

ness  of  theirs,  which,  would  not  allow  them  to  recognize 
any  glory  in  Him  higher  than  man's ;  in  the  pride  and 
the  obstinacy  which  led  them,  having  arrived  at  a  fore- 
gone conclusion  as  to  what  kind  of  Saviour  they  would 
have,  wilfully  to  close  their  eyes  to  all  in  their  own  Scrip- 
tures which  set  Him  forth  as  other  than  they  had  them- 
selves resolved  He  should  be.' 

It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  Lord  is  said  to  have  ^  'per- 
ceived in  his  spirit  that  they  so  reasoned  within  themselves.' 
His  soul  was  human,  but  his  *  spirit '  was  divine ;  and  by 
this  divine  faculty  He  perceived  the  unspoken  counsels  and 
meditations  of  their  hearts^  (John  vi.  6i),  and  perceiving 
laid  them  bare :  just  as  in  another  place  He  is  said  to  have 
*  answered '  the  unuttered  as  though  it  had  been  the  uttered 
thought  of  the  Pharisee  at  whose  table  He  sat  (Luke  vii.  40) . 
They  should  be  doubly  convinced ;  and  first  by  the  proof 
which  He  gave  that  the  thoughts  and  meditations  of  all 
hearts  were  open  and  manifest  to  Him,  while  yet  it  is  God 
only  who  searches  into  these  (i  Sam.  xvi.  7  ;  i  Kin.  viii.  39  ; 
I  Chron.  xxviii.  9;  2  Chron.  vi.  30;  Jer.  xvii.  10;  Ezek. 
ii.  5  ;  Prov.  xv.  1 1  ;  Acts  i.  24) ;  only  of  the  Divine  Word 
could  it  be  affirmed  that  *  He  is  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts 
and  intents  of  the  heart '  (Heb.  iv.  12).'  *  Why  reason  ye 
these  things  in  your  hearts  ? '  this  was  their  first  conviction. 
And  then  the  second :  '  Whether  is  it  easier  to  say  to  the 
sick  of  the  palsy,  Thy  sins  he  forgiven  thee;  or  to  say.  Arise, 
and  taJce  up  thy  bed,  and  walk  ? '  He  indicates  to  them 
here  the  exact  line  in  which  their  hard  and  unrighteous 
thoughts  of  Him  were  at  that  moment  travelling.     Some- 

^  Augustine  {Enarr.  iii.  in  Ps.  xxx-vi.  25):  Quis  potest  dimittere 
peccata  [inquiunt]  nisi  solus  Deus?  Et  quia  ille  ei'at  Deus,  talia 
cogitantes  audiebat.  Hoc  verum  de  Deo  cogitabant,  sed  Deum  pras- 
sentem  non  videbant.  Fecit  ergo  .  .  .  quod  viderent,  et  dedit  quod 
crederent. 

*  Grotius :   Non  ut  propbetae  per  afflatum,  sed  suo  spiritu. 

'  Gerhard  {Ilann.  Eoang.  43):  Jesus  igitur  exponens  Pharisseis  quid 
taciti  apud  se  in  inlimis  cordium  recessibus  cogjtabant,  ostendit  se  plus 
esse  quani  nominem ;  et  eadem  potestate,  divina  scilicet,  qua  secreta 
cordium  videat,  se  etiam  peccata  remittere  posse. 


THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC.        219 

thing  of  this  sort  they  were  murmuring  within  themselves, 
*  These  honours  are  easily  snatched.     Any  pretender  may 
go  about  the  world,  saying  to  this  man  and  that,  "  Thy 
sins  he  forgiven  thee.''*     But  where  is  the  evidence  that  his 
word  is  allowed  and  ratified  in  heaven,  that  this  which  is 
spoken  on  earth  is  sealed  in  heaven  ?     The  very  nature  of 
the  power  which  this  man  claims  secures  him  from  con- 
viction ;  for  this  releasing  of  a  man  from  the  condemnation 
of  his  sin  is  an  act  wrought  in  the  inner  spiritual  world^ 
attested  by  no  outer  and  visible  sign ;  therefore  it  is  easily 
challenged,  since  any  disproof  of  it  is  impossible.'     And 
our   Lord's   answer,  meeting  this  evil  thought  in  their 
hearts,  is  in  fact  this :  '  You  accuse  Me  that  I  am  claiming 
a  safe  power,  since,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  benefit 
bestowed,  no  sign  follows,  nothing  to  testify  whether  I 
have  challenged  it  rightfully  or  not.     I  will  therefore  put 
Myself  now  to  a  more  decisive  proof.     I  will  speak  a  word, 
I  will  claim  a  power,  which  if  I  claim  falsely,  I  shall  be 
convinced  upon  the  instant  as  an  impostor  and  a  deceiver. 
But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath  'power  on 
earth  to  forgive  sins  {He  saith  to  the  sicJc  of  thecals]]),  I  say 
unto  thee.  Arise,  and  take  up  thy  hed,^  and  go  thy  xvay  into 
thine  house.^     By  the  effects,  as  they  follow  or  do  not 
follow,  you  may  judge  whether  I  have  a  right  to  say  to 
him.  Thy  sins  he  forgiven  thee.'  ^ 

1  Kpaj3f^ariiQ,  or  as  Tischeudorf  in  all  the  best  MSS.  finds  it,  KpajSarroc, 
=.grahatus  (in  Luke  K\[v[h'<v),  a  mean  pallet  used  by  the  poorest,  = 
GKiinrovc,  dnKcu'Ttic  It  is  a  Macedonian  word,  entirely  rejected  by  Greek 
purists  (Becker,  Char  ides,  vol.  ii.  p.  121  ;  Lobeck,  Fhri/nichus,  p.  62). 
Sozomen  (Hist.  Heel.  i.  11)  tells  the  story  of  a  bishop  in  Cyprus,  who, 
teaching  the  people  from  this  Scripture,  and  having  to  repeat  the  Lord's 
words,  substituted  oki^i-ovc  for  Ki)inifiaT„r,  and  was  rebuked  by  another 
bishop  present,  who  asked  if  the  word  which  was  good  enough  for  Christ, 
was  not  good  enough  for  him. 

*  Compare  Isai.  xxxv.  3,  LXX,  when  he  recounts  the  promises  of 
Messiah's  time  ;    'lr!\vnaTif  x^wti;  at'iifikvai,  K<tl   yorara   7ra paXfXvfiki-a. 

^  Jerome  (Comm.  in  Matt,  in  loc):  Utrum  sint  paralytico  peccata 
dimissa,  solus  noverat,  qui  dimittebat.  Surge  autem  et  ambula,  tam  ille 
qui  consurgebat,  quam  hi  qui  consurgentem  videbaut  approbare  poterant. 
Fit  igitur  carnale  signum,  ut  probetur  spirituale.     Bernard  {De  Divers. 

15 


220         THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC. 

In  our  Lord's  argument  it  must  be  carefully  noted  that 
He  does  not  ask,  '  Wliicli  is  easiest,  to  forgive  sins,  or  to 
raise  a  sick  man  bj  a  word  ?  '  for  that  of  forgiving  could 
not  be  affirmed  to  be  easier  than  this  of  healing ;  but, 
'  Which  is  easiest,  to  claim  this  power,  or  to  claim  that ;  to 
say.  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,  or  to  say,  Arise  and  walk  ? ' 
And  He  then  proceeds :  *  That  is  easiest,  and  I  will  now 
prove  my  right  to  say  it,  by  saying  with  effect  and  with  an 
outward  consequence  setting  its  seal  to  my  truth,  the 
harder  word.  Rise  up  and  ivalh.  By  doing  that  which  is 
submitted  to  the  eyes  of  men,  I  will  attest  my  right  and 
power  to  do  that  which,  in  its  very  nature,  lies  out  of  the 
region  of  visible  proofs.  By  these  visible  tides  of  God's 
grace  I  will  give  you  to  know  in  what  way  the  great 
under-currents  of  his  love  are  setting,  and  make  clear  that 
those  and  these  are  alike  obedient  to  my  word.  From  this 
which  I  will  now  do  openly  and  before  you  all,  you  may 
conclude  that  it  is  no  "  robbery  "  (PhU.  ii.  6)  upon  my  part 
to  claim  also  the  power  of  forgiving  men  their  sins.'  ^ 

Serm.  xxv.):  Blaspliemare  me  blasphematis,  et  quasi  ad  excusandum 
visibilis  curationis  virtutem,  ine  iuvisibilem  dicitis  usurpare.  Sed  ego 
vos  potiu3  blasphemos  esse  conviuco,  signo  probans  visibili  invisibilem 
potestatem.  Corn,  a  Lapide:  Qui  dicit,  Remitto  tibi  peccata,  men- 
dacii  argui  noa  potest,  sive  ea  revera  remittit,  sive  non,  quia  nee  pec- 
catum  nee  peccati  remissio  oculis  videri  potest ;  qui  autem  dicit  para- 
lytico,  Surge  et  ambula,  se  et  famam  suam.  evidenti  falsitatis  periculo 
exponit ;  re  ipsa  enira  si  paralyticus  non  surgat,  falsitatis,  imposturse 
et  mendacii  ab  omnibus  arguetiir  et  convincetur,  .  .  .  Unde  signanter 
Christus  non  ait,  Quid  est  facilius,  remittere  peccata,  an  sanare  paralyti- 
cum,  sed  dicere,  Dimittuntur  tibi  peccata,  an  dicere,  Surge  et  ambula  ? 
Bengal :  In  se,  utrumque  est  divinos  potestatis  et  potentiis ;  et  intimus 
in  se  est  peccati  et  morbi  nexus ;  una,  quae  utrumque  tollit,  virtus.  Ra- 
tione  judicii  bumani  facilius  est  dicere,  Remissa  sunt;  et  boe  potest, 
quod  minus  videtur,  qui  potest  dicere,  Surge,  quod  majus  videtur, 

^  Maldonatus,  with  bis  usual  straightforward  meeting  of  a  difficulty, 
observes  here,  Poterit  autem  aliquis  merito  dubitare,  quomodo  Christus 
quod  proband  am  erat,  concludat.  Nam  si  remittere  peccata  erat  re  vera 
difficilius,  dura  experientia  curati  paralytic!  docet  se  quod  re  ipsa  facilius 
est,  posse  facere :  non  bene  probat  posse  et  se  peccata  remittere,  quod  erat 
difficilius.  Respondeo,  Christum  tantum  probare  voluisse  sibi  esse  cre- 
dendum,  quod  bene  probat  ab  eo,  cujus  probatio  erat  difficilior;  quasi 
dicat,  Si  non  fallo  cum  dico  paralytico,  Surge  et  ambula,  ubi  difficilius 


THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PARALYTIC.         221 

Thus,  to  use  a  familiar  illustration  of  our  Lord's  argument, 
it  would  be  easier  for  a  man,  equally  ignorant  of  French 
and  Chinese,  to  claim  to  know  the  last  than  the  first ;  not 
that  the  language  itself  is  easier ;  but  that,  in  the  one  case, 
multitudes  could  disprove  his  claim;  and,  in  the  other, 
hardly  a  scholar  or  two  in  the  land. 

In  'power  on  earth '  there  lies  a  tacit  opposition  to  power 
in  heaven.  *  This  power  is  not  exercised,  as  you  deem,  only 
by  God  in  heaven ;  but  also  by  the  Son  of  man  on  earth. 
You  rightly  assert  that  it  is  only  exercised  by  Him  whose 
proper  dwelling  is  in  the  heavens;  but  He,  who  in  the 
person  of  the  Son  of  man,  has  descended  also  upon  earth, 
has  brought  down  this  power  with  Him  here.  On  earth 
also  is  One  who  can  speak,  and  it  is  done.'  We  have  at 
Matt.  xvi.  19;  xviii.  18,  'on  earth'  and  *  in  heaven,'  set 
over  against  one  another  in  the  same  antithesis.  The 
parallels,  however,  are  imperfect,  since  the  Church  binds 
and  looses  by  a  committed,  and  not  an  inherent,  power ; 
as  one  has  beautifully  said,  Facit  in  terris  opera  cpelorum, 
but  only  in  the  name  and  by  the  might  of  her  heavenly 
Head.  It  at  first  surprises  that  as  *  Son  of  man  '  He  claims 
this  power ;  for  this  of  forgiving  sins  being  a  divine  attri- 
bute, we  might  expect  that  He  would  now  call  Himself  by 
his  better  name,  since  only  as  Son  of  God  such  prerogative 
was  his.'  The  Alexandrian  fathers,  in  conflict  with  the 
Nestorians,  pressed  these  words  in  proof  of  the  entire 
communication  of  all  the  properties  of  Christ's  divine 
nature  to  his  human ;  so  that  whatever  one  had,  was  so 
far  common  to  both  that  it  might  also  be  predicated  of  the 

est  probare  me  verum  dicere,  cur  creditis  me  fallere  cum  dico,  Hemittan- 
tur  tibi  peccata  tua  ?  Denique  ex  re,  qu^  eifectu  probari  potest,  in  re, 
quse  probari  non  potest,  sibi  fidem  facit.  Augustine  (^Exp.  ad  Rom,  §  23): 
Declaravit  ideo  se  ilia  facere  in  corporibus,  ut  crederetur  animas  peccato- 
rum  dimissione  liberare ;  id  est,  ut  de  potestate  visibili  potestas  invisibilia 
mereretur  fidem. 

'  See  TertuUian  {Adv.  Mare.  iv.  lo)  for  a  somewhat  different  reason 
why  the  Lord  should  here  call  Himself,  Son  of  man. 


222         THE  HEALING   OF  THE  PABALYTIC. 

other.'  Thus  far  assuredly  thej  have  right,  namely,  that 
unless  the  two  natures  had  been  indissolubly  knit  together 
in  a  single  person,  no  such  language  could  have  been  used ; 
yet  *  Son  of  man  *  being  the  standing  title  whereby  the 
Lord  was  well  pleased  to  designate  Himself,  asserting  as 
it  did  that  He  was  at  once  one  with  humanity,  and  the 
crown  of  humanity,  it  is  simpler  to  regard  the  term  here 
as  merely  equivalent  to  Messiah,  without  attempting  to 
extort  any  dogmatic  conclusions  from  it.  All  which  our 
Lord  explicitly  claimed  for  Himself  in  those  great  dis- 
courses recorded  John  V.  17-23;  X.  30-38,  He  implicitly 
claims  here. 

And  now  this  word  of  his  is  confirmed  and  sealed  by  a 
sign  following.  The  man  did  not  refuse  to  answer  this 
appeal :  'And  immediately  he  arose,  tooJc  ujp  the  bed  ^  (cf.  John 
V.  8  ;  Acts  ix.  34),  and  went  forth  before  them  all ; '  carrying 
now  the  bed  on  which  he  was  lately  carried ;  the  couch 
which  was  before  the  sign  of  his  sickness  being  now  the 
sign  of  his  cure ;  and  they  who  just  before  barred  and 
blocked  up  his  path,  now  making  way  for  him,  and  allow- 
ing free  egress  from  the  assembly  (cf.  Mark  x.  48,  49). 

Of  the  effects  of  this  miracle  on  the  Pharisees  nothing 
is  told  us  ;  probably  there  was  nothing  good  to  tell.  But 
the  people,  less  hardened  against  the  truth,  more  receptive 
of  divine  impressions,  '  ivere  all  amazed '  (cf.  Matt.  xii.  23 ; 
Mark  i.  27  ;  v.  42  ;  vi.  51 ;  vii.  37),  '  and  they  glorified  God, 
saying.  We  never  saw  it  on  this  fashion  *  (cf.  Matt.  xv.  3 1  ; 
John  xi.  45,  46).  The  miracle  had  done  its  office.  The 
beholders  marvelled  at  the  wonderful  work  done  before 
their  eyes ;  and  this  their  marvel  deepened  into  holy  fear, 
which  found  its  utterance  in  the  ascription  of  glory  to  God, 

^  See  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  in  Cramer,  Catena,  in  loc.  This  is  the 
commum'catio  idtomatum, 

*  Amobius  (Con.  Gen.  i.  45),  speaking  generally  of  Christ's  healings, 
but  with  manifest  allusion  to  this :  Suos  referebant  lectoa  alienis  paulo 
ante  cervicibus  lati.  liengel;  Lectulus  hominem  tuieratj  nunc  homo 
lectulum  ferebat. 


THE  HEALING   OF    THE  PARALYTIC.        ii^ 

*  ivlio  had  given  such  j^ower  unto  men.'  "We  need  not  suppose 
tliat  they  very  accurately  explained  to  themselves,  or  could 
have  explained  to  others,  their  feeling  of  holy  exultation ; 
but  they  felt  truly  that  what  was  given  to  one  man,  to  the 
Man  Christ  Jesus,  was  given  for  the  sake  of  all,  and  given 
ultimately  to  all,  that  therefore  it  was  indeed  given  '  unto 
men.*  Tliey  dimly  understood  that  He  possessed  these 
powers  as  the  true  Head  and  Representative  of  the  race, 
and  therefoie  that  these  gifts  to  Him  were  a  rightful  sub- 
ject of  gladness  and  thanksgiving  for  every  member  of  that 
race. 


lo.  THE  CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPEH. 

Matt,  viii.  1-4;  Maek  i.  40-45  ;  Lxtke  v.  12-16. 

WE  are  told  that  tlie  ascended  Lord  confirmed  tlie  word 
of  Ms  servants  witli  signs  following  (Mark  svi.  20); 
in  tlie  days  of  his  flesh  He  did  the  same  for  his  own.  His 
discourse  upon  the  Mount,  that  solemn  revision  of  the 
moral  code,  lifting  it  up  to  a  higher  level,  has  scarcely 
ended,  when  this  and  other  of  his  most  memorable  miracles 
are  performed.  He  will  thus  set  his  seal  to  all  that  He  has 
just  been  teaching,  and  vindicate  his  right  to  speak  in  the 
language  of  authority  which  He  has  there  held  ^  (Matt.  vii. 
29).  As  He  was  descending  from  the  mountain, '  there  came 
a  leper  and  worshipped  Him,'  one,  in  the  language  of  St. 
Luke,  ^full  of  leprosy,'  so  that  it  was  not  a  spot  here  and 
there,  but  the  tetter  had  spread  over  his  whole  body ;  he 
was  leprous  from  head  to  foot.  This  man  had  ventured, 
it  may  be,  to  linger  on  the  outskirts  of  the  listening  crowd, 
and,  undeterred  by  the  severity  of  the  closing  sentences  of 
Christ's  discourse,  came  now  to  claim  the  blessings  pro- 
mised at  its  opening  to  the  suffering  and  the  mourning. 

But  we  shall  ill  understand  this  miracle,  unless  first  a 
few  words  have  been  said  concerning  leprosy  in  general, 
and  the  meaning  of  the  uncleanness  attached  to  it  in  the 
Levitical  law.  The  medical  details,  the  distinction  between 
one  kind  of  leprosy  and  another,  as  between  the  white 
{\suK^),  which  among  the  Jews  was  the  most  frequent,  and 

*  Jerome  (in  loc.) :  Eecte  post  prnedicationem  atque  doctrinam  signorum 
offevtiir  occasio,  ut  per  virtutum  iiiiracula  prreteritus  apud  audientes  sermo 
tirmeliir. 


THE  CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPER.  225 

the  yet  more  terrible  elephantiasis  (thought  by  many  to 
have  been  that  with  which  Job  was  visited,  and  so  named 
because  in  it  the  feet  swelled  to  an  elephantine  size),  would 
be  here  out  of  place.  Only  it  will  be  necessary  to  correct 
a  mistake,  common  to  all  writers  who,  like  Michaelis,  can 
see  in  the  Levitical  ordinances  little  more,  for  the  most 
part,  than  regulations  of  police  or  of  a  Board  of  health,  or, 
at  the  highest,  rules  for  the  well  ordering  of  an  earthly 
society ;  thus  missing  altogether  a  main  purpose  which 
these  ordinances  had — namely,  that  by  them  men  might 
be  trained  into  a  sense  of  the  cleaving  taint  which  is 
theirs  from  birth,  into  a  confession  of  impurity  and  of  con- 
sequent separation  from  God,  and  thus  into  a  longing- 
after  purity  and  re-union  with  Him.  I  refer  to  the  mis- 
taken assumption  that  leprosy  was  catching  from  one  per- 
son to  another ;  and  that  lepers  were  so  carefully  secluded 
from  their  fellow-men,  lest  they  might  communicate  the 
poison  of  the  disease  to  others ;  as,  in  like  manner,  that 
the  torn  garment,  the  covered  lip,  the  cry  '  Unclean,  un- 
clean '  (Lev.  xiii.  45),  were  warnings  to  all  that  they  should 
keep  aloof,  lest  unawares  touching  a  leper,  or  drawing 
into  too  great  a  nearness,  they  should  become  partakers  of 
his  disease.  So  far  from  any  danger  of  the  kind  existing, 
nearly  all  who  have  looked  closest  into  the  matter  agree  that 
the  sickness  was  incommunicable  by  ordinary  contact  from 
one  person  to  another.  A  leper  might  transmit  it  to  his 
children,'  or  the  mother  of  a  leper's  children  might  take  it 
from  him ;  but  it  was  by  no  ordinary  contact  communicable 
from  one  person  to  another. 

All  the  notices  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  well  as  in  other 
Jewish  books,  confirm  the  statement  that  we  have  here 
something  very  much  higher  than  a  mere  sanitary  regu- 
lation. Thus,  where  the  law  of  Moses  was  not  obsei-ved, 
no  such  exclusion  necessarily  found  place ;  Naaman  the 
leper  commanded  the  armies  of  Syria  (2  Kin.  v.  i);  Gehazi, 

'  See  liobir.6on,  Biblical  Researches,  vol.  i.  p.  359. 


126  TlIJi    CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPEU. 

with  his  leprosy  that  never  should  be  cleansed  (2  Kin.  v.  27}, 
talked  familiarly  with  the  king  of  apostate  Israel  (2  Kin. 
viii.  5).  And  even  where  the  law  of  Moses  was  in  force, 
the  stranger  and  the  sojourner  were  expressly  exempted 
from  the  oi'dinances  relating  to  leprosy ;  which  conld  not 
have  been,  had  the  disease  been  contagious,  and  the  mo- 
tives of  the  leper's  exclusion  been  not  religious,  but  civil.' 
How,  moreover,  should  the  Levitical  priests,  had  the 
disease  been  this  creeping  infection,  have  ever  themselves 
escaped  it,  obliged  as  they  were  by  their  very  office  to  sub- 
mit the  leper  to  actual  handling  and  closest  examination  ? 
Lightfoot  can  only  explain  this  by  supposing  in  their  case 
a  perpetual  mu'acle. 

But  there  is  no  need  of  this.  The  ordinances  concerning 
leprosy  had  another  and  far  deeper  significance,  into  which 
it  will  be  needful  a  little  to  enter.  It  is  clear  that  the  same 
principle  which  made  all  having  to  do  with  death,  as 
mourning  (Lev.  xxi.  i  ;  Ezek.  xliv.  25),  a  grave  (Luke  xi. 
44;  Matt,  xxiii.  27),  a  corpse,  the  bones  of  a  dead  man 
(Ezek.  xxxix.  12-15  ;  2  Kin.  xxiii.  20),  the  occasions  of  a 
ceremonial  uncleanness,  inasmuch  as  all  these  were  signs 
and  consequences  of  sin,  might  consistently  with  this  have 
made  every  sickness  an  occasion  of  uncleanness,  each  of 
these  being  also  death  beginning,  partial  death — echoes  in 
the  bo4y  of  that  terrible  reality,  sin  in  the  soul.     But  in- 

^  See  a  learned  dissertation  by  Rhenferd,  De  Lepra  Cutis  llvhreeonim, 
in  Meusclien,  Nov.  Test,  ex  Talm.  illust.  pp.  1086-1089;  who  concludes 
his  disquisition  on  this  part  of  the  subject  thus:  Ex  quibus,  nisi  nos 
omnia  fallunt,  certe  concludimus,  pra3cipuis  Judseorum  magistris,  tradi- 
tionumque  auctoribus  nunquam  in  mentem  incidisse  ullam  de  lepra? 
contagio  suspicionem,  omnemque  banc  de  contagiosa  lepra  sententiam 
plurimis  antiquissimisque  scriptoribus  seque  ac  Mosi  plane  fuisse  in- 
cognitam.  Compare  the  extract  from  Balsamon,  in  Suieer,  Tlies.  s.  v. 
XfTTpof,  where,  speaking  of  the  custom  of  the  Eastern  Church,  he  says, 
'  They  frequent  our  churches  and  eat  with  us,  in  nothing  hindered  by 
the  disease.'  In  like  manner  there  was  a  place  for  them,  though  a  place 
apart,  in  the  synagogues. — I  ought  to  add  that  Dr.  Belcher,  in  a  very 
leai'ned  essay  in  the  Dublin  Quarterly  Journal  of  Medical  Science,  May 
1864,  with  the  title  The  Hebreio,  Medieval  and  Modem  Leprosies  Com' 
pared,  does  not  consider  that  Rhenferd  has  proved  jUis  point. 


THE   CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPER,  li-j 

btead  of  this,  in  a  gracious  sparing  of  man,  and  not  pushing 
the  principle  to  the  uttermost,  God  took  but  one  sickness, 
one  of  these  visible  outcomings  of  a  tainted  nature,  in 
which  to  testify  that  evil  was  not  from  Him,  could  not 
dwell  with  Him.  He  linked  this  teaching  but  with  one  ; 
by  his  laws  concerning  it  to  train  men  into  a  sense  of  a 
clinging  impurity,  which  needed  a  Pure  and  a  rurifier  to 
overcome  and  expel,  and  which  nothing  short  of  his  taking 
of  our  flesh  could  drive  out.  And  leprosy,  the  sickness  of 
sicknesses,  was  throughout  these  Levitical  ordinances 
selected  of  God  from  the  whole  host  of  maladies  and 
diseases  which  had  broken  in  upon  the  bodies  of  men. 
Bearing  his  testimony  against  it.  He  bore  his  testimony 
against  that  out  of  which  every  sickness  groAvs,  against 
sin  ;  as  not  from  Him,  as  gi'ievous  in  his  sight ;  and  against 
the  sickness  also  itself  as  grievous,  being  as  it  was  a  visi- 
ble manifestation,  a  direct  consequence,  of  sin,  a  forerunner 
of  that  death,  which  by  the  portal  of  disobedience  and 
revolt  had  found  entrance  into  natures  created  by  Him  for 
immortality. 

And  fearful  indeed,  as  might  be  expected,  was  that  dis- 
ease, round  which  this  solemn  teaching  revolved.  Leprosy 
was  nothing  short  of  a  living  death,  a  corrupting  of  all  the 
humours,  a  poisoning  of  the  very  springs,  of  life ;  a  dissolu- 
tion little  by  little  of  the  whole  body,  so  that  one  limb  after 
another  actually  decayed  and  fell  away.  Aaron  exactly  de- 
scribes the  appearance  which  the  leper  presented  to  the 
eyes  of  the  beholders,  when,  pleading  for  Miriam,  he  says, 
*  Let  her  not  be  as  one  dead,  of  whom  the  flesh  is  half 
consumed  when  he  cometh  out  of  his  mother's  womb ' 
(Num.  xii.  12).  The  disease,  moreover,  was  incurable  by 
the  art  and  skill  of  man ;  ^  not  that  the  leper  might  not 
return  to  health  ;  for,  however  rare,  such  cases  are  contem- 
plated in  the  Levitical  law.     But  then  the  leprosy  left  the 

^  Cyril  of  Alexandria  calls  it  -rradoQ  ovk  larn^ov.  Dr.  Thomson  {The 
Land  and  the  Book,  pt.  iv.  c.  43)  has  a  tenible  account  of  this  disease. 


228  THE   CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPEB. 

man,  not  in  obedience  to  any  skill  of  the  physician,  but 
purely  and  merely  through,  the  good  will  and  mercy  of  God. 
This  helplessness  of  man  in  the  matter  dictates  the  speecli 
of  Jehoram,  who,  when  Naaman  is  sent  to  claim  liealing 
from  him,  exclaims,  '  Am  I  God,  to  kill  and  to  make  alive, 
that  this  man  doth  send  unto  me  to  recover  a  man  of  his 
leprosy?'  (2  Kin.  v.  7);  as  tliough  the  king  of  Syria  had 
been  seeking  to  fasten  a  quarrel  upon  him. 

The  leper,  thus  fearfully  bearing  about  in  the  body  the 
outward  and  visible  tokens  of  sin  in  the  soul,  was  treated 
throughout  as  a  sinner,  as  one  in  whom  sin  had  reached  its 
climax,  as  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins.  He  was  himsglf  a 
dreadful  parable  of  death.  He  bore  about  him  the  emblems 
of  death  (Lev.  xiii.  45);  the  rent  garments,  mourning  for 
himself  as  one  dead ;  the  head  bare,  as  was  their  wont  who 
were  defiled  by  communion  with  the  dead  (Num.  vi.  9 ; 
Ezek.  xxiv.  17);  and  the  lip  covered  (Ezek.  xxiv.  17').  In 
the  restoration,  too,  of  a  leper,  precisely  the  same  instru- 
ments of  cleansing  were  in  use,  the  cedar- wood,  the  hyssop, 
and  scarlet,  as  were  used  for  the  cleansing  of  one  defiled 
through  a  dead  body,  or  aught  pertaining  to  death ;  these 
same  being  never  employed  on  any  other  occasion  (cf. 
Num.  xix.  6,  13,  18  with  Lev.  xiv.  4-7).  When  David 
exclaims,  *  Purge  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean ' 
(Ps.  li.  7),  he  contemplates  himself  as  a  spiritual  leper,  as 
one  who  had  sinned  a  sin  unto  death,  who  needs  therefore 
through  the  blood  of  sprinkling  to  be  restored  to  God  from 
the  very  furthest  degree  of  separation  from  Him.  And 
leprosy  being  this  sign  and  token  of  sin,  and  of  sin  reach- 
ing to  and  culminating  in  death,  could  not  do  otherwise 
than  entail  a  total  exclusion  from  the  camp  or  city  of  God. 
God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead  ;  He  has  no  fellowship  with 

*  Spencer  calls  him  well,  sepulcruin  ambulans;  and  Calvin:  Pro 
mortuis  habiti  sunt,  quos  lepra  a  sacro  csetu  abdicabat.  And  wben 
tbrough  the  Crusades  leprosy  had  been  introduced  into  Western  Europe, 
it  was  usual  to  clothe  the  leper  in  a  shrotid,  aud  to  say  for  him  the  masses 
for  the  dead. 


THE  CLEANSING   OF  THE   LEPER.  229 

death,  for  death  is  the  correlative  of  sin ;  but  only  of  the 
living.  But  the  leper  was  as  one  dead,  and  as  such  was 
shut  out  of  the  camp  ^  (Lev.  xiii.  46 ;  Num.  v.  2-4)  and  the 
city  (2  Kin.  vii.  3),  this  law  being  so  strictly  enforced, 
that  there  was  no  exemption  from  it  even  for  the  sister  of 
Moses  herself  (Num.  xii.  14,  15);  and  as  little  for  kings 
(2  Cliron.  xxvi.  21 ;  2  Kin.  xv.  5) ;  men  being  by  this  exclu- 
sion taught  that  what  here  found  place  in  a  figure,  should 
find  place  in  very  deed  with  every  one  found  in  the  death 
of  sin:  he  should  be  shut  out  from  the  true  City  of  God. 

*  There  shall  nowise  enter  into  it  anything  that  defileth, 
neither  whatsoever  worketh  abomination,  or  maketh  a  lie ' 
(Eev.  xxi.  27). 

Nothing  of  all  this,  as  need  hardly  be  observed,  in  the 
least  implied  that  the  leper  was  a  worse  or  guiltier  man 
than  his  fellows.  Being,  indeed  as  it  was,  this  symbol  of 
sin,  leprosy  was  often  the  punishment  of  sins  committed 
against  the  divine  government.  Miriam,  Gehazi,  Uzziah^ 
are  all  cases  in  point ;  and  when  Moses  says  to  the  people, 
*Take  heed  of  the  plague  of  leprosy  '  (Deut.  xxiv.  8),  this 
is  no  admonition  diligently  to  observe  the  laws  about  le- 
prosy, but  a  warning  lest  any  disobedience  of  theirs  should 
jDrovoke  God  to  visit  them  with  this  plague.^  The  Jews 
themselves  called  it  *  the  finger  of  God,'  and  emphatically, 

*  the  stroke.'  It  attacked,  they  said,  first  a  man's  house ; 
and  then,  if  he  refused  to  turn,  his  clothing ;  and  lastly, 
should  he  persist  in  sin,  himself:* — a  fine  parable,  let  the 
fact  have  been  as  it  might,  of  the  manner  in  which  God's 
judgments,  if  a  man  refuse  to  listen  to  them,  reach  ever 
nearer  to  the  centre  of  his  life.     So,  too,  they  said  that  a 

*  Herodotus  (i.  138)  mentions  the  same  law  of  exclusion  as  existing 
among  the  Persians,  who  accounted  in  like  manner  that  leprosy  was  an 
especial  visitation  on  account  of  especial  sins. 

^  The  strnnge  apocryphal  tradition  of  Judas  Iscariot  perishing  by  the 
long  misery  of  a  leprosy,  in  its  most  horrible  form  of  elephantiasis,  had 
this  same  origin  (Gfrorer,  Die  heiliye  Sage,  vol.  i.  p.  179). 

'  See  Rhenferd,  p.  108?-. 

*  Molitor,  Philosophie  der  Geschichte,  vol.  iii.  p.  191. 


230  THE   CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPER. 

man's  true  repentance  was  the  one  condition  of  his  lepro?y 
leaving  him.* 

Seeing  then  that  leprosy  was  this  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  the  innermost  spiritual  corruption,  this  sacrament 
of  death,  on  no  fitter  shape  of  physical  evil  could  the  Lord 
of  life  show  forth  his  power.  He  will  thus  prove  Himself 
the  conqueror  of  death  in  life,  as  elsewhere  of  death  accom- 
plished ;  and  He  therefore  fitly  urges  his  victory  over  this 
most  terrible  form  of  physical  evil,  as  a  convincing  testi- 
mony of  his  Messiahship  :  '  the  lepers  are  cleansed '  (Matt. 
xi.  5).  Nor  may  we  doubt  that  the  terribleness  of  the 
infliction,  the  extreme  suffering  with  which  it  was  linked, 
the  horror  with  which  it  must  have  filled  the  sufferer's 
mind,  as  he  marked  its  slow  but  inevitable  progress,  to  be 
arrested  by  no  human  hand,  the  ghastly  hideousness  of  its 
uimatural  whiteness  (Num.  xii.  10;  Exod.  iv.  6  ;  2  Kin.  v. 
27),  must  all  have  combined  to  draw  out  his  pity,**  in  whom 
love  went  hand  in  hand  with  power,  the  Physician  and 
Healer  of  the  bodies  as  of  the  souls  of  men. 

We  address  ourselves  now  to  the  first  of  these  acts  of 
healino-  whereof  the  Gospels  keep  a  record.  'And  behold 
there  came  a  leper  and  worshipped  Him.'  In  this  worship, 
as  need  hardly  be  said,  there  was  an  act  of  profound  reve- 
rence, but  not  of  necessity  a  recognition  of  a  divine  cha- 
racter in  Him  to  whom  such  homage  was  offered.  What 
this  poor  man  would  fain  receive  from  the  Lord  he  expresses 
in  words  remarkable  as  the  titterance  of  a  simple  and 
humble  faith,  which  is  willing  to  abide  the  issue,  whatever 
that  may  be  ;  and  having  declared  its  desire,  to  leave  the 
granting  or  the  withholding  of  it  to  a  higher  wisdom  and 

*  Tlius  Jerome,  following  earlier  Jewish  expositors,  explains 'smitten 
of  God'  (Isai.  liii.  4)  as  =  leprosus;  and  out  of  that  passage  and  the 
general  belief  in  leprosy  as  a  vococ  PtljXamc,  upgrew  the  old  Jewish  tra- 
dition of  the  Messiah  being  a  leper  (aee  Hengstenberg,  Christologie,  vol.  L 
p.  382). 

2  Cf.  Mark  i.  4.1,  6  ci  'Ii/croDf  (Tn-\ayxv«(r0f t'c. 


THE   CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPER.  231 

love  :  *  Lord,  if  Thou  wilt.  Thou  canst  make  me  clean.^^ 
There  is  no  questioning  liere  of  the  power ;  nothing  of  his 
unbelief  who  said,  '  If  Thoxt  canst  do  anything,  have  com- 
passion on  us  and  help  us  '  (Mark  ix.  22).  ^  And  Jesus  put 
forth  his  hand,  and  touched  him,''  ^  ratifying  and  approving 
his  utterance  of  faith,  by  granting  his  request  in  the  very 
words  wherein  that  request  had  been  embodied:  ^  I  will; 
he  thou  clean.^  And  immediately  his  leprosy  was  cleansed.' 
This  touching  of  the  unclean  by  Christ  is  noteworthy, 
drawing  after  it,  as  according  to  the  ordinances  of  the  law 
it  did,  a  ceremonial  defilement.  The  Gnostics  saw  in  this 
non-observance  by  the  Lord  of,  the  ordinances  of  the  Law 
a  confirmation  of  their  assertion  that  this  had  not  proceeded 
from  the  good  God,  but  from  the  evil.^  Tertullian  answers 
them  well.^     He  first  shows  what  deeper  meaning  lay  in 

*  Yet  the  Romanists  in  vain  endeavour  to  draw  from  this  passage  an 
approval  of  the  timor  diffidentise  in  our  prayers  which  have  relation  to 
the  things  of  eternal  life,  such  as  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  gift  of  the 
Spirit.  These  we  are  to  ask,  assuredly  believing  that  we  have  them. 
There  is  this  ditfidence  in  the  leper's  request,  because  he  is  asking  a  tem- 
poral benefit,  which  must  always  be  asked  under  conditions,  and  which 
may  be  refused,  though  to  the  faithful  man  the  refusing  is  indeed  a 
granting  in  a  higher  form  (see  Gerhard,  Locc.  Theoll.  loo.  17,  §  138). 

^  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc.  iv.  35) :  Quoniam  ipse  erat  authenticus 
Pontifex  Dei  I'atris,  inspexit  illos  secundum  Legis  arcanum,  signifi- 
cantis  Christum  esse  verum  disceptatorem  et  elimatorem  humanarum 
macularum. 

^  Bengel :  Echo  prompta  ad  fidem  leprosi  maturam.  Ipsa  leprosi 
oratio  continebat  verba  responsionis  optatse. 

*  Tertullian  {Ado.  Marc.  iv.  9) :  Ut  ajmulus  Legis  tetigit  leprosum, 
nihil  faciens  prseceptum  legis,  per  contemptum  inquiuamenti. 

*  Ibid. :  Non  pigebit  ....  figuratae  legis  vim  ostendere ;  quae  in 
exemplo  leprosi  non  contingendi,  immo  ah  omni  commercio  submovendi, 
communicationem  prohibebat  hominis  delictis  commaculati ;  cum  quali- 
bus  et  apostolus  cibum  quoque  vetat  sumere  ;  participari  enim  stigmata 
delictorum,  quasi  ex  contagione,  si  quis  se  cum  peccatore  miscuerit. 
Itaque  Dominus  volens  altius  intelligi  Legem,  per  carnalia  spiritalia 
significantem ;  et  hoc  nomine  non  destruens  sed  magis  exstruens  quam 
pertinentius  volebat  agnosci,  tetigit  leprosum,  a  quo  etsi  homo  inquinari 
potuisset,  Deus  utique  non  inquinaretur,  incontauiinabilis  scilicet.  Ita 
non  prsescribetur  illi  quod  debuerit  legem  observare,  et  non  contingero 
immundum,  quem  contactus  immundi  non  erat  inquinaturus.  He  ia  less 
successful  in  his  interpretation  of  the  spiritual  significance  {De  Pud.  20), 
where  he  goes  into  more  details  in  the  matter.     So  Calvin  (in  loc.) :  Ea 


232  THE    CLEANSING    OF  THE   LEPER. 

the  proliibition  to  touch  the  ceremonially  unclean,  namely, 
that  we  should  not  defile  ourselves  through  partaking  in 
other  men's  sins ;  as  St.  Paul,  transfiguring  these  ceremo- 
nial prohibitions  into  moral,  exclaims,  '  Come  out  from 
among  them,  and  be  ye  separate,  and  touch  not  the  unclean 
thing  ^  (2  Cor.  vi.  17).  These  carnal  prohibitions  held  good 
for  all,  till  He  came,  the  Pure  to  whom  all  things  were 
pure  ;  who  was  at  once  incontaminate  and  incontaminable, 
in  whom,  first  among  men,  the  advancing  tide  of  this 
world's  evil  was  efiectually  arrested  and  rolled  back. 
Another  would  have  defiled  himself  by  touching  the  leper 
(Lev.  xiii.  44-46);  but  He,  Himself  remaining  undefiled, 
cleansed  him  whom  He  touched ;  for  in  Him  health  over- 
came sickness, — and  purity,  defilement, — and  life,  death.' 
'  And  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  8ee  thou  tell  no  man  '  (cf.  Matt. 
xii.  16;  Mark  v.  43).  St.  Ambrose  sees  in  this  precept  of 
silence  an  instruction  of  Christ  to  his  people  that,  so  far  as 
may  be,  they  withdraw  from  sight  the  good  which  they  do; 
lest,  he  adds,  they  be  themselves  overtaken  with  a  worse 
leprosy  than  any  which  they  cure.'^  But  hardly  so.  If 
the  prohibition  did  not  find  its  motive  in  the  inner  moral 
condition  of  the  man,  its  more  probable  reason  was,  lest 
his  own  stiller  ministry  should  be  hindered  by  the  un- 
timely concourse  of  multitudes,  drawn  to  Him  in  the  hope 
of  worldly  benefits  (which  on  this  very  occasion  did  occur, 

est  in  Christo  puritas,  qua3  omnes  sordes  et  inquinamenta  absorbeat,  neque 
se  contaminat  leprosum  tangendo,  neque  Legem  transgreditur ;  and  he 
beautifully  finds  in  bis  stretching  forth  the  hand  and  touching,  a  symbol 
of  the  Incarnation:  Nee  tamen  quidquam  inde  maculae  contraxit,  sed 
integer  manens,  sordes  omnes  nostras  exhausit,  et  nos  perfudit  sua  sancti- 
tate.  H.  de  Sto.  Victore :  Lepram  tetigit,  et  mundus  permansit,  quia 
veram  humanitatis  formam  sumpsit,  et  culpam  non  contraxit. 

^  He  touched  the  leper,  says  Theophylact,  StiKvvc  on  i)  ayia  ahrov  adpK 
ayiaafxov  n(T(£iSov, 

*  Ujp.  in  Luc.  r.  5  :  Sed  ne  lepra  transire  possit  in  medicum,  unus- 
quisque  Dominicae  humilitatis  exemplo  jactantiam  vitet.  Cur  enim 
prascipitur  nemini  dicere,  nisi  ut  doceret  non  vulganda  nostra  beneficia, 
Bed  premenda?  So  Chrjsostom  :  'Arixpovs  »}/*«£  itapaaKtva^Mv  koI  aKti/o- 
SoKove. 


THE   CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPER.  233 

Mark  i.  45);  or  in  the  expectation  of  seeing  wonderful 
things;'  or  it  might  be,  lest  the  violence  of  his  enemies 
should  be  prematurely  raised  by  the  fame  of  his  mighty 
deeds  (John  xi.  46,  47).  But,  as  observed  already,  the  in- 
junction to  one  that  he  should  proclaim,  to  another  that  he 
should  conceal,  the  great  things  which  God  had  wrought  for 
him,  had  far  more  probably  a  deeper  motive,  and  grounded 
itself  on  the  different  moral  conditions  of  the  persons 
healed.  Grotius  and  Bengel  suggest  very  plausibly  that 
this  *  See  thou  tell  no  man '  is  to  be  taken  with  this  limita- 
tion— *  till  thou  hast  fulfilled  that  which  I  enjoin  thee,  that 
is,  to  go  thy  way,  show  thyself  to  the  priests,  and  offer  the  gift 
that  Moses  commanded,  for  a  testimony  unto  them.'  Till  this 
was  accomplished,  he  should  hold  his  peace ;  lest,  if  a  ru- 
mour of  these  things  went  before  him,  the  priests  at  Jeru- 
salem, out  of  envy,  out  of  a  desire  to  depreciate  what  the 
Lord  had  wrought,  might  deny  that  the  man  had  ever 
been  a  leper,  or  else  that  he  was  now  truly  cleansed.*  We 
may  thus  account  for  the  notice  of  St.  Mark,  ^  He  forthwith 
sent  him  away,'  or,  put  him  forth ;  He  would  allow  no 
lingering,  but  required  him  to  hasten  on  his  errand,  lest  a 
report  of  his  cure  should  outrun  him.  *  For  a  testimony 
unto  them,'  some  understand,  '  for  a  proof  even  to  these 
gainsayers  that  I  am  come,  not  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to 
fulfil  it,  not  to  dispel  even  a  shadow,  till  I  have  brought  in 
the  substance  in  its  room.^     These  Levitical  offerings  I 

'  So  Beza :  Ne  turba  in  solis  miraculis  obstupescens  non  satis  ipsi 
spatii  ad  proecipuum  illud  sibi  a  Patre  impositum  munus  obeundum,  ad 
docendum  videlicet,  relinqueret.     Compare  Hammond  on  Matt.  viii.  4. 

^  Thus  the  Auct.  Oper.  Imperf.  {Horn,  xxi.)  :  Ideo  eum  jubet  offerre 
munera,  ut  si  postmodum  vellent  eum  expellere,  diceret  eis:  Munera 
quasi  a  niundato  suscepistis,  et  quomodo  me  quasi  leprosum  expel- 
litis  ?  Si  leprosus  adhuc  fui,  munera  accipere  non  debuistis  quasi  a 
mundato :  si  autem  mundus  factus  sum,  repellere  non  debetis  quasi 
leprosum, 

'  So  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc.  iv.  9)  :  Quantum  enim  ad  glorloe  humanse 
aversionem  pertinebat,  vetuit  eum  divulgare,  quantum  autem  ad  tutelam 
Legis,  jussit  ordinem  impleri.  Bengel :  Ut  testimonium  illis  exhibeatur, 
de  Messia  prsesente,  Legi  non  deroganti. 


234  THE  CLEANSING   OF  THE  LEPER. 

still  allow  and  uphold,  while  as  yet  that  better  offering,  to 
which  they  point,  has  not  been  made.'  ^  We  should  under- 
stand the  words  rather,  ^ for  a  testimony  against  them  (cf. 
Mark  vi.  1 1  ;  Luke  ix.  5) ;  for  a  witness  against  their  un- 
belief, who  refuse  to  give  credence  to  Me,  even  while  I 
legitimate  my  claims  by  such  mighty  works  as  these ;  works 
whose  reality  they  have  ratified  themselves,  accepting  thy 
gift,  re-admitting  thee,  as  one  truly  cleansed,  into  the  con- 
gregation'^  (John  V.  36  ;  xv.  24).  Tor  his  presenting  him- 
self before  the  priest  had  this  object,  that  the  priest  might 
ascertain  if  indeed  his  leprosy  was  cleansed  (Lev.  xiv.  3), 
might  in  that  case  accept  his  gift,'  and  offer  it  as  an 
atonement  for  him;  and  then,  when  all  this  was  duly  ac- 
complished, pronounce  him  clean,  and  reinstate  him  in  all 
his  rights  and  privileges,  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  again.^ 

'  Augustine  (Quaxt.  Evang.  ii.  qu.  3):  Quia  nondum  esse  coeperat 
sacrificium  sanctum  sanctorum,  quod  corpus  ejus  est. 

"  Maldonatus :  Ut  inexcusabiles  essent  sacerdotes,  si  in  ipsum  non 
crederent,  cujus  miracula  probassent.  Witsius  (jDe  3Iirac.  Jesti,  i.  p.  32)  : 
Idcirco  addidit  Jesus  hsec  a  se  ita  juberi  mV  i.(apTvpwv  avro'icf  ne  deinceps 
ulla  specie  negari  miraculum  possit,  et  ut,  dum  eorum  judicio  approbatus, 
munus  obtulisset,  testimonium  contra  se  haberent,  impie  se  facere,  quod 
Christo  obluctarentur. 

*  Awpov  is  used  for  a  hlooJi/  offering  by  the  LXX,  as  Gen.  iv.  4;  Lev. 
i.  2,  3,  10;  cf.  Heb.  viii.  4.,  where  the  Swpci=Su)pci  re  kuI  tivnlaQ  of  the 
verse  preceding,  therefore  also  of  ver.  i  ;  cf.  INfatt.  v.  23.  Tertullian 
{Adv.  Marc.  iv.  9)  urges  too  much  the  notion  of  a  thank-o^er'mcr  in  this 
gift  of  the  cleansed  leper,  which  properly  it  was  not,  though  the  words 
are  admirable,  applied  to  such :  Argumenta  enim  figurata  utpote 
prophetatae  Legis  adhuc  in  suis  imaginibus  tuebantur,  qua  significabant 
hominem  quondam  peccatorem,  verbo  mox  Dei  emaculatum,  offerre 
debere  munus  Deo  apud  templum,  orationem  scilicet  et  actionem 
gratiarum  apud  Ecclesiam,  per  Christum  Jesum,  catholicum  Patris 
Sacerdotem. 

*  All  the  circumstances  of  the  leper's  cleansing  yielded  themselves  so 
aptly  to  the  scheme  of  Church  satisfactions,  as  it  gradually  shaped  itself 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  that  it  is  nothing  wonderful  that  it  was  used  at  least 
as  an  illustration,  often  as  an  argument.  Yet  even  then  we  find  the  great 
truth,  of  Christ  the  only  Cleanser,  often  brought  out  as  the  most  promi- 
nent. Thus  by  Gratian  {De  Pocnit.  dist.  i.) :  Ut  Dominus  ostenderet 
quod  non  sacerdotali  judicio,  sed  largitate  divinse  gratiae  peccator 
emundatur,  leprosum  tangendo  mundavit,  et  postea  sacerdoti  sacrificium 
ex  lege  offerre  praecepit.     Leprosus  enim  tangitur,  cum  respectu  divinje 


THE   CLEANSING  OF  THE  LEPER.  235 

pietatis  mens  peccatoris  illustrata  compungitur Leprosus  semet- 

ipsum  sacerdoti  reprsesentat,  dum  peccatura  suum  sacerdoti  poenitens 
confitetur.  Sacrificium  ex  lege  ofFert,  dum  satisfactionem  Ecclesise 
judicio  sibi  impositam  factis  exsequitur.  Sed  antequam  ad  sacerdotem 
perveniat,  emundatur,  dum  per  contritionem  cordis  ante  confessionem 
oris  peccati  venia  indulgetuf.  Cf.  Pet.  Lombard  {Sent.  iv.  dist.  18): 
Dominus  leprosum  sanitate  prius  per  se  restituit,  deinde  ad  sacerdotes 

misit,  quorum  judicio  ostenderetur  mundatus Quia  etsi  aliquis 

apud  Deum  sit  solutus,  non  tamen  in  facie  Ecclesise  solutua  habetur,  nisi 
per  judicium  eacerdotis.  lu  eolvendia  ergo  culpis  vol  retiniulis  ita 
operatur  sacerdoa  evangelicus  et  judicat,  sicut  olim  legalis  in  illis,  qui 
contaminati  erant  lepra,  quae  peccatum  signat. 


16 


11.  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  CENTURION'S  SERVANT, 

Matt.  viii.  5-13',  Ltjke  vii.  i-io. 

THEEE  has  been  already  occasion  to  denounce  tlie  error 
of  confounding  this  healing  with  that  of  the  noble- 
man's son  recorded  by  St.  John  (iv.  46).  But  while  we 
may  not  seek  forcibly  to  reduce  to  one  two  narratives  which 
relate  events  entirely  different,  there  is  matter  still  in  the 
records  of  this  miracle  on  which  the  harmonist  may  exer- 
cise his  skill.  We  possess  two  several  accounts  of  it, 
independent  of  one  another,  the  one  by  St.  Matthew,  the 
other  by  St.  Luke.  According  to  the  first  Evangelist,  the 
centurion  comes  a  petitioner  in  his  own  person  for  the 
boon  which  he  desires ;  according  to  the  third,  he  sends 
others  as  intercessors  and  mediators  between  himself  and 
the  Lord,  as  intercessors  for  him,  with  other  differences 
which  necessarily  follow  and  flow  out  of  this.  Doubtless 
the  latter  is  the  more  strictly  literal  account  of  the  circum- 
stance, as  it  actually  came  to  pass ;  St.  Matthew,  who  is 
briefer,  telling  it  as  though  the  centurion  did  in  his  own 
person  what,  in  fact,  he  did  by  the  intervention  of  others — 
an  exchange  of  persons  of  which  all  historical  narrative 
and  all  the  language  of  our  common  life  is  fuU.^  A  com- 
parison of  Mark  x.  35  with  Matt.  xx.  20  will  furnish 
another  example  of  the  same. 

'  Faustus  the  Maniclifean  uses  these  apparent  divergences  of  the  two 
narratives,  with  the  greater  fulness  of  one  account  than  of  the  other, 
one  saying  that  *  many  shall  come  from  the  east  and  west,  and  sit  doivn  with 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  in  the  kingdom  of  God^  which  is  omitted  in 
the  other,  to  cast  a  suspicion  upon  both.     The  calumniator  of  the  Old 


THE   CENTURION S  SERVANT.  237 

*  And  when  Jesus  was  entered  into  Capernaum,  there  came 
unto  Him  a  centurion,  beseeching  Him,  and  saying.  Lord,  m/y 
servant  lieth  at  home  grievously  tormented.''  This  centurion, 
probably  one  of  the  Eoman  garrison  of  Capernaum,  was 
by  birth  a  heathen ;  but,  like  another  of  the  same  rank  in 
the  Acts  (x.  i),  like  the  eunuch  under  Candace  (Acts  viii. 
27),  like  Lydia  (Acts  xvi.  14),  was  one  of  many  who  were 
at  this  time  deeply  feeling  the  emptiness  and  falsehood  of 
all  the  polytheistic  religions,  and  who  had  attached  them- 
selves by  laxer  or  closer  bonds,  as  proselytes  of  the  gate, 
or  proselytes  of  righteousness,  to  the  congregation  of  Israel 
and  the  worship  of  Jehovah,  finding  in  Judaism  a  satisfac- 
tion of  some  of  the  deepest  needs  of  their  souls,  and  a 
promise  of  the  satisfaction  of  all.*  He  was  one  among  the 
many  who  are  distinguished  from  the  seed  of  Abraham,  yet 
described  as  '  fearing  God,'  or  '  worshipping  God,'  of  whom 
we  read  so  often  in  the  Acts  (xiii.  43,  50;  xvi.  14;  xvii.  4, 
17 ;  xviii.  7),  the  proselytes,  whom  the  providence  of  God 
had  so  wonderfully  prepared  in  all  the  great  cities  of  the 
Greek   and   Eoman  world   as  a  link   of   communication 


Covenant,  be  cannot  endure  to  hear  of  the  chiefs  of  that  Covenant  thus 
sitting  down  in  the  first  places  at  the  heavenly  banquet.  Augustine's 
admirable  reply  contains  much  which  is  applicable  still,  on  the  unfair 
way  in  which  gainsayers  find  or  make  discrepancies  where  indeed  there 
are  none, — as  though  one  narrator  telling  some  detail,  contradicts  another, 
who  passes  over  that  detail, — one  ascribing  to  some  person  an  act, 
contradicts  another  who  states  more  particularly  that  he  did  it  by  the 
agency  of  another.  All  that  we  demand,  he  saj^s,  is,  that  men  should  be 
as  fiiir  to  Scripture  as  to  &\\y  other  historic  document ;  should  suffer  it  to 
speak  to  men  as  they  are  wont  to  speak  to  one  another  {Con.  Faust. 
xxxiii.  7,  8) :  Quid  ergo,  cum  legimus,  obliviscimur  quemadmodum 
loqui  soleamus  ?  An  Scriptura  Dei  aliter  nobiscum  fuerat  quam  nostro 
more  locutura  ?     Cf.  De  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  20. 

1  Eemarkably  enough  all  the  Roman  centurions  who  figure  in  the 
sacred  narrative  are  honourably  mentioned  ;  thus,  besides  these  two,  the 
centurion  who  watched  by  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  exclaimed,  '  Truly 
this  was  the  Son  of  God'  (Matt,  xxvii.  54  ;  Luke  xxiii.  47) ;  and  Julius, 
who  so  courteously  entreated  Paul  on  his  way  to  Rome  (Acts  xxvii.  3, 
43).  Probably,  in  the  general  wreck  of  the  moral  institutions  of  the 
heathen  world,  the  Roman  army  was  one  of  the  few  in  which  some  of 
the  old  virtues  survived. 


238  THE  HEALING  OF 

between  Gentile  and  Jew,  in  contact  witli  both, — holding 
to  the  first  by  their  race,  and  to  the  last  by  their  religion ; 
and  who  must  have  greatly  helped  to  the  early  spread  of 
the  faith  and  to  the  ultimate  fusion  of  Gentile  and  Jew 
into  one  Christian  Church. 

But  with  the  higher  matters  which  he  had  learned  from 
his  intercourse  with  the  people  of  the  covenant,  he  had 
learned  this,  that  all  heathens,  all  *  sinners  of  the  Gentiles,'' 
were  *  without ; '  that  there  was  a  middle  wall  of  partition 
between  them  and  the  children  of  the  stock  of  Abraham ; 
that  they  were  to  worship  only  as  in  the  outer  court,  and 
not  presume  to  draw  near  to  the  holy  place.  And  thus, 
as  we  learn  from  St.  Luke  (vii.  3),  he  did  not  himself  ap- 
proach, but  *  when  he  heard  of  Jesus,  he  sent  unto  Sim  the 
elders  of  the  Jews,  beseeching  Him  that  He  would  come  and 
heal  his  servant,'  a  servant  who  '  luas  dear  unto  him,' '  but 
now  'was  sicTc  and  ready  to  die.'  The  Jewish  elders  exe- 
cuted their  commission  with  fidelity  and  zeal,  pleading  for 
him  as  one  whose  affection  for  the  chosen  people,  and 
active  well-doing  in  their  behalf,  had  merited  this  return 
of  favour  :  '  They  besought  Him  instantly,  saying  that  he  was 
worthy  for  whom  He  should  do  this  ;  for  he  loveth  our  nation, 
and  he  hath  built  us  a  synagogue.  Then  Jesus  went  with 
them.' 

But  presently  even  this  request  seemed  to  the  maker  of 
it  too  bold.  In  his  true  and  ever-deepening  humility  he 
counted  it  a  presumption  to  have  asked,  though  by  the 
intervention  of  others,  the  presence  under  his  roof  of  one 
so  highly  exalted.  *  And  when  He  was  now  not  far  from  the 
house,  the  centurion  sent  friends  to  Him,  saying.  Lord,  trouble 

^  Calvin :  Lucas  hoc  modo  dubitationem  prsevenit,  quas  subire  poterat 
lectorum  animos :  scimus  enim,  non  habitos  fuisse  servos  eo  in  pretio,  ut 
de  ipsorum  vita  tam  anxii  essent  doniini,  nisi  qui  sino-ulari  industria  vel 
fide  vel  alia  virtute  sibi  gratiam  acquisierant,  Significat  ergo  Lucas  non 
vulgare  fuisse  sordidumque  mancipium,  sed  fidelem  et  raris  dotibns  orna- 
tum  servura  qui  eximia  gratia  apud  dominum  polleretj  bine  tanta  illius 
vitse  cura  et  tam  studiosa  commendatio. 


THE   CENTURION'S  SERVANT.  239 

not  Thyself:  for  I  am  not  worthy  that  Thou  shouldest  enter 
under  my  roof.*  It  was  not  merely  that  he,  a  heathen, 
might  claim  no  near  access  to  the  King  of  Israel ;  but 
there  was,  no  doubt,  beneath  this  and  mingling  with  this, 
a  deep  inward  feeling  of  his  own  personal  unworthiness 
and  unfitness  for  a  close  communion  with  a  holy  being, 
which  was  the  motive  of  this  message.  And  thus,  in 
Augustine's  words,  ^  counting  himself  unworthy  that  Christ 
should  enter  into  his  doors,  he  was  counted  worthy  that 
Christ  should  enter  into  his  heart" — a  far  better  boon ;  for 
Christ  sat  down  in  the  houses  of  many,  as  of  that  proud 
self-righteous  Pharisee  (Luke  vii.  36;  cf.  xiv.  i);  whose 
hearts  for  all  this  were  not  the  less  empty  of  his  presence. 
But  this  centurion  received  Him  in  his  heart,  whom  he  did 
not  receive  in  his  house.*  And,  indeed,  every  little  trait 
of  his  character,  as  it  comes  forth  in  the  sacred  narrative, 
points  him  out  as  one  in  whom  the  seed  of  God's  word 
would  find  the  ready  and  prepared  soil  of  a  good  and  hon- 
est heart.  For,  not  to  speak  of  those  prime  graces,  faith 
and  humility,  which  so  eminently  shone  forth  in  him, — 
the  affection  which  he  had  evidently  won  from  those  Jewish 
elders,  the  zeal  which  had  stirred  him  to  build  a  house  for 
the  worship  of  the  true  God,  his  earnest  care  and  anxiety 
about  a  slave, — one  so  commonly  excluded  from  all  earnest 
human  sympathies  on  the  part  of  his  master,  that  even  a 
Cicero  apologizes  for  feeling  deeply  the  death  of  such 
a  one  in  his  household, — all  these  traits  of  character  com- 
bine to  present  him  to  us  as  one  of  those  'children  of  God' 
scattered  abroad  in  the  world,  whom  the  Son  of  God  came 
that  He  might  gather  into  the  fellowship  of  his  Church 
(John  xi.  52). 

^  Serm,  Ixii.  i :  Dicendo  se  indignum  prfestitit  dignura,  non  in  cujua 
parietes,  sed  in  cujus  cor  Christus  intraret.  Neque  hoc  diceret  cum  tauta 
fide  et  humilitate,  nisi  ilium  quern  timebat  intrare  in  domum  suam,  corde 
gestaret.  Nam  non  erat  magna  felicitas  si  Dominus  Jesus  intraret  in 
parietes  ejus  et  non  esset  in  pectore  ejus  (Luke  vii.  36), 

'  Augustine  {Serm.  Ixxvii.  8)  :  Tecto  non  recipiebat,  corde  receperat. 
Quanto  humilior,  tanto  capacior,  tanto  plenior,  Colles  enim  aquam 
repellunt,  valles  implentur. 


240  THE  HEALING   OF 

Tlie  manner  is  very  noteworthy  in  wliicli  fhe  Roman 
officer,  by  lielp  of  an  analogy  drawn  from  tlie  circle  of 
things  with  which  he  himself  is  most  familiar,  by  a  com- 
parison borrowed  from  his  OAvn  military  experience,*  makes 
easier  to  himself  this  act  of  his  faith.  He  knows  that 
Christ's  word,  without  his  actual  presence,  will  be  sufficient; 
there  is  that  in  his  own  experience  which  assures  liim  as 
much  ;  for,  he  adds,  *  I  am  a  man  under  authority,  having 
soldiers  under  me,  and  I  say  to  this  man.  Go,  and  he  goeth  ; 
and  to  another,  Come,  and  he  cometh;  and  to  my  servant.  Do 
this,  and  he  doeth  it  J  It  is  an  argument  from  the  less  to 
the  greater.  He  contemplates  the  relation  of  Christ  to  the 
spiritual  kingdom  in  an  aspect  as  original  as  it  is  grand. 
The  Lord  appears  to  him  as  the  true  Csesar  and  Imperator, 
the  highest  over  the  military  hierarchy,  not  of  earth, 
but  of  heaven  (Col.  i.  16).  'lam,'  he  would  say,  'one 
occupying  only  a  subordinate  place,  set  under  authority, 
a  subaltern,  with  tribunes  and  commanders  over  me.  Yet, 
notwithstanding,  those  that  are  under  me,  obey  me ;  and 
my  word  is  potent  with  tliem.  I  bid  them  go  hither  and 
thither,  and  they  obey  my  bidding,  so  that,  myself  sitting 
stni,  I  can  yet  accomplish  the  things  which  I  desire  (Acts 
X.  8 ;  xxiii.  23).  How  much  more  Thou ;  not  set,  as  I  am, 
in  a  subordinate  place,  but  who  art  as  a  Prince  over  the 
host  of  heaven,^  with  Angels  and  Spirits  to  obey  thy  word 
and  run   swiftly   at   thy   command,    canst  fulfil  from   a 

*  Bengel :  Sapientia  fidelis  ex  ruditate  militari  pulclire  elucens. 

*  The  ffrpnTtd  oiipavwg  (Luke  ii.  13  ;  cf.  Rev.  xix.  14).  How  true  a 
notion  this  indeed  was,  which  in  his  simple  faith  the  centurion  had  con- 
ceived for  himself,  we  see  from  those  words  of  our  Lord,  *  Thinkest 
thou  tliat  I  cannot  now  pray  to  my  Father,  and  He  shall  presently  give 
Me  more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels'  (Matt,  xxvi  53)?  Jerome  (in 
loc.)  :  Volens  ostendere  Dominum  quoque  non  per  adventum  tantum 
corporis,  sed  per  angelorum  ministeria  posse  implere  quod  vellet.  Fuller 
{Pisyah  Sii/ht  of  Palestine,  vol.  i.  p.  109)  takes  it  a  little  differently — 
'  Concluding  from  his  own  authority  over  his  soldiers,  that  Christ,  by  a 
more  absolute  power,  as  Lord  High  Marshal  of  all  maladies,  without  his 
personal  presence,  could  by  his  bare  word  of  command  order  any  disease 
to  march  or  retreat  at  his  pleasure.' 


THE   CENTURION'S  SERVANT.  241 

distance  all  tb.e  good  pleasure  of  thy  will.  There  is  then 
no  need  that  Thou  shouldest  come  to  my  house ;  only 
commission  one  of  these  genii  of  healing,  who  will  execute 
speedily  the  errand  of  grace  on  which  Thou  shalt  send 
him." 

In  all  this  there  was  so  wonderful  a  union  of  faith  and 
humility,  that  it  is  nothing  strange  to  read  that  the  Lord 
Himself  was  filled  with  admiration  :  '  When  Jesus  heard  it, 
He  marvelled,'^  and  said  to  them  that  followed.  Verily,  I  say 

^  Severus  (ia  Cramer,  Catena)  :  Ei  yap  ly<L  ffTpanwrijQ  wv,  Ka\  vnb 
i^ovaiav  (iaaiX'eiuQ  rtXJij',  toiq  SopvipopoiQ  iVTiWnfiaif  Truig  oh  fiaWov 
avToq  6  ToJu  &i'iiJ  Kai  ayy(XiKU)v  Svvaaiuiv  Trotjjn/c,  o  OiXhq  a'pf'C  '<^''' 
yiri'iatrai;  and  Augustine  (Enarr.  in  Ps.  xlvi.  9,  and  Se)-jn.  Ixii.  2):  Si 
ergo  ego,  iuquit,  homo  sub  potestate,  jubendi  liabeo  potestatem,  quid  tu 
possis,  cui  omnes  serviimt  potestates  ?  And  Bernard  more  than  once 
urge3  this  as  a  singular  feature  of  his  humility ;  thus  Up.  cccxcii. : 
O  prudens  et  vero  corde  humilis  aniina !  dicturus  quod  prielatus  esset 
niilitibus,  repressit  extollentiam  confessione  subjectionis :  immo  proe- 
misit  subjectionem,  ut  pluris  sibi  esset  quod  suberat,  quani  quod  prse- 
erat ;    and  beautifully,   De   Off.   Episc,   8 :    Non  jactabat  potestatem, 

quam  nee  solam  protulit,  nee  priorem Praemissa  siquidem  est 

humilitas,  ne  altitude  praecipitet.  Nee  enira  locum  invenit  arrogantia, 
ubi  tarn  clarum  humilitatis  insigne  proecesserat.  Such  explanation  ap- 
pears preferable  to  theirs  who  make  avt^'pMTroQ  hnb  i^ovaiav,  a  man 
in  authority.  Hettig  (Theol.  Stud.  u.  Krit.  1838,  p.  472),  reading 
■with  Lachmann,  avBp.  vno  i^ovr.  rannoptvoq  (which  last  word,  however, 
should  not  have  found  place  in  the  text),  has  an  ingenious  but  untenable 
explanation  in  this  sense.  The  Auct.  Oper.  Imperf.  interprets  rightly 
dv'r'pioTroQ  vTTo  i^uvaiai'jS,  man  in  a  subordinate  position ;  but  then  will 
not  allow,  nay  rather  expressly  denies,  that  this  is  a  comparison  by  way 
of  contrast,  which  the  centurion  is  drawing, — that  he  is  magnifying  the 
Lord's  kiyhest  place  by  comparing  it  with  his  own  only  subordinate, 
but  that  rather  he  is  in  all  things  likening  the  one  to  the  other :  '  As  I  am 
under  worldly  authorities,  and  yet  have  those  whom  I  may  send,  so 
Thou,  albeit  under  thine  heavenly  Father,  hast  yet  a  heavenly  host  at 
thy  bidding.'  (Ego  sum  homo  sub  potestate  alterius,  tamen  habeo  po- 
testatem j  ubendi  eis  qui  sub  me  sunt.  Nee  enim  impedior  j  ubere  minores, 
propter  quod  ipse  sum  sub  majoribus;  sed  ab  illis  quidem  jubeor,  sub 
quibus  sum;  illis  autem  jubeo,  qui  sub  me  sunt:  sic  et  tu,  quamvis  sub 
potestate  Patris  sis,  secundum  quod  homo  es,  habes  tameu  potestatem 
jubendi  angelis  tuis,  nee  impediris  jubere  inferioribus,  propter  quod  ipse 
habes  superiorem.)  This  interpretation,  though  capable  of  a  fair  meaning, 
probably  expresses  the  Arian  tendencies  of  the  author, 

*  Put  since  all  wonder  properly  so  called,  arises  from  the  meeting  with 
something  imexpected  and  hitherto  unknown,  how  could  the  Lord,  to 
whom  all  things  were  known,  be  said  to  marvel  ?    To  this  some  have 


242  THE  HEALING   OF 

unto  you,  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel.'^ 
Where  faith  is,  there  will  be  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  so  that 
this  saying  already  contains  a  warning  to  his  Jewish 
hearers,  of  the  danger  they  are  in  of  forfeiting  blessings 
whereof  others  are  showing  themselves  worthier  than  they.' 
But  the  words  which  follow  are  far  more  explicit :  '  For  I 
say  unto  you,  that  many  shall  come  from  the  east  and  west, 
and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham,  and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  in  the 
Jcingdom  of  heaven/  shall  be  partakers  of  the  heavenly 
festival,  which  shall  be  at  the  inauguration  of  the  king- 
dom ;  '  but  the  children  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  cast  out  into 
outer  darJcness  ;  there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth;  ' 
— in  other  words,  the  kingdom  should  be  taken  from  them, 
'  and  given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof ' 
(Matt.  xxi.  23) ;  because  of  their  unbelief,  they,  the  natural 
branches  of  the  olive  tree,  should  be  broken  off,  and  in 
their  room  the  wild  olive  should  be  graffed  in  (Rom.  xi. 
17-24;  Acts  xiii.  46 ;  xix.  9;  xxviii.  28;  Matt.  iii.  9). 

*  And  Jesus  said  unto  the  centurion,^  or  to  him  in  his 
messengers,  '  Go  thy  way,  and  as  thou  hast  believed,'^  so  be 

answered  tliat  Christ  did  not  so  mucli  Himself  wonder,  as  commend  to 
us  that  which  was  worthy  of  our  admiration.  Thus  Augustine  {De  Gen. 
Con.  3Ia7i.  i.  8)  :  Quod  mirabatur  Dominus,  nohis  mirandum  esse  signifl- 
cabat;  and  he  asks  in  another  place  (Cow.  Adv.  Leg.  et  Pruph.  i.  7),  how 
should  not  He  have  known  before  the  measure  of  that  faith,  which  He 
Himself  had  created  ?  (An  vero  alius  earn  in  corde  centurionis  opera- 
batur,  quam  ipse  qui  mirabatur?)  Yet  a  solution  like  this  brings  an 
imreality  into  parts  of  our  Lord's  conduct,  as  though  He  did  some  things 
for  show  and  the  effect  which  they  would  have  on  others,  instead  of  all 
his  actions  being  the  truthful  exponents  of  his  own  most  inmost  being. 
On  the  other  hand,  to  say  that  according  to  his  human  nature  He  might 
have  been  ignorant  of  some  things,  seems  to  threaten  a  Nestorian  seve- 
rance of  the  Person  of  Christ.  But  the  whole  subject  of  the  communi- 
catio  idiomatum,  with  its  precipices  on  either  side,  is  one  of  tbe  hardest 
in  the  whole  domain  of  theology.  See  Aquinas,  Sum.  Theol,  3*,  qu.  15, 
art.  8 ;  and  Gerhard,  Loco.  Theoll.  iv.  2,  4. 

*  Augustine  :  Tn  oliva  non  inveni,  quod  inveni  in  oleastro.  Ergo  oliva 
superbiens  prsecidatur ;  oleaster  humilis  inseratur.  Vide  inserentem,  vide 
prsecidentem.     Cf.  In  Joh.  tract,  xvi.  ad  finem. 

^  Augustine :  Alienigenae  came,  domestici  corde. 

'  Bernard  {Serin,  iii.  De  Animd) :  Oleum  misericordiis  in  vase  fiducia) 
ponit. 


THE   CENTURION'S  SERVANT.  243 

it  done  unto  thee.  And  his  servant  was  healed  in  the  self- 
same hour ;  ' — not  merely  was  there  a  remission  of  tlie 
strength  of  the  disease,  but  it  left  him  altogether  (John  iv. 
52;  Matt.  viii.  15).  There  is  a  certain  difficulty  in  de- 
fining the  exact  character  of  the  complaint  from  which  he 
was  thus  graciously  delivered.  St.  Matthew  describes  it 
as  ^ j[)alsy  X*  with  which  the  ^grievously  tormented^  yahich. 
immediately  follows,  seems  not  altogether  to  agree,  nor 
yet  the  report  in  St.  Luke,  that  he  was  *  ready  to  die  j ' 
since  palsy  in  itself  neither  brings  with  it  violent  parox- 
ysms of  pain,  nor  is  it  in  its  nature  mortal.  But  paralysis 
with  contraction  of  the  joints  is  accompanied  with  intense 
suffering,  and,  when  united,  as  it  much  oftener  is  in  the 
hot  climates  of  the  East  and  of  Africa  than  among  us, 
with  tetanus,  both  *  grievously  torments,''  and  rapidly  brings 
on  dissolution.^ 

^  At  I  Mace.  ix.  55,  56,  it  is  said  of  Alcimus,  -who  was  'taken  with  a 
palsy,'  that  he  died  presently  *  with  great  torment'  {fitra  ^anavov  fnyaXrjs 
=ofi»'</">c  fiaaavi^ofievo^  here  ;  cf.  Winer,  Realioorterbuch,  s.  v.  Paralytische). 
In  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  these  paralytica  are  always  TrapaXvriKoif 
in  St.  I;uke's  Gospel,  as  in  the  Acts,  ■jrapaXiKvuivoi, 


12.  THE  DEMONIAC  IN  THE  SYNAOOGUE  OF 
CAPERNAUM. 

Maek  i.  23-27  ;  Ltjke  iv.  33-36. 

THE  healing  of  this  demoniac,  the  second  miracle  of  the 
kind  which  the  Evangelists  record  at  any  length,  may 
not  offer  so  much  remarkable  as  some  similar  works,  but 
not  the  less  has  its  own  special  points  of  interest.  What 
distinguishes  it  the  most,  although  finding  parallels  else- 
where (see  Mark  i.  34 ;  Matt.  viii.  29),  is  the  testimony 
which  the  evil  spirit  bears  to  Christ,  and  Ms  refusal  to  ac- 
cept it.  This  history  thus  stands  in  very  instructive 
relation  with  another  in  the  Acts  (xvi.  16-18).  There  in 
like  manner,  a  damsel  possessed  with  a  spirit  of  divination 
bears  witness  to  Paul  and  his  company,  '  These  men  arft 
the  servants  of  the  most  high  God,  which  show  unto  us 
the  way  of  salvation  ; '  and  the  servant  there  will,  as  little 
as  the  Master  here,  endure  that  hell  should  bear  witness  to 
heaven,  the  kingdom  of  darkness  to  the  kingdom  of  light, 
and  commands  with  power  the  evil  spirit  to  come  out. 

Our  Lord  was  teaching,  as  was  his  wont  upon  a  Sabbath 
(cf.  Luke  iv.  16;  Acts  xiii.  14,  15),  in  the  synagogue  of 
Capernaum ;  and  the  people  now,  as  on  other  occasions 
(see  Matt.  vii.  29),  'were  astonished  at  his  doctrine,  for  his 
vjord  was  with  power.'  But  He  was  not  mighty  in  word 
only,  but  also  in  work ;  and  it  was  ordained  by  the  provi- 
dence of  his  Heavenly  Father,  that  the  opportunity  should 
here  be  offered  Him  for  confirming  his  word  with  signs 
following.  '  There  tvas  in  their  synagogue  a  man  with  an 
unclean  spirit ; '  or,  as  St.  Linkf  describes  it,  '  with  the  spirit 


THE  DEMONIAC  AT   CAPERXAILV.  245 

of  an  unclean  devil  ; '  but  not  therefore  excluded  from  tlie 
public  worsliip  of  God  any  more  tban  another  in  like  con- 
dition, recorded  at  Luke  xiii.  16;  and  this  spirit  felt  at 
once  the  nearness  of  One  who  was  stronger  than  all  that 
kingdom  whereimto  he  belonged ;  of  One  whose  mission 
it  was  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil.  And  with  the 
instinct  and  consciousness  of  this  danger  which  so  nearly 
threatened  his  usurped  dominion,  he  cried  out, — not  the 
man  himself,  but  the  evil  spirit, — *  saying,  Let  us  alone  : ' 
ivJiat  have  we  to  do  with  Thee,  Thou  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?  ^  art 
Thou  come  to  destroy  us  ?  '  (cf.  Matt.  viii.  29  ;  2  Pet.  ii.  4  ; 
Jude  6).  'I  htoio  Thee  who  Thou  art,  the  Holy  One  of  God.'' 
Earth  has  not  recognized  her  king,  disguised  as  He  is  like 
one  of  her  own  children  ;  but  heaven  has  borne  witness  to 
Him  (Luke  ii.  11  ;  iii.  22;  Matt.  iii.  17),  and  now  hell 
must  bear  its  witness  too  ;  '  the  devils  believe  and  tremble.' 
The  unholy,  which  is  resolved  to  be  unholy  still,  under- 
stands well  that  its  death  knell  has  sounded,  when  'f/ie  Holy 
One  of  God'  (compare  Ps.  xvi.  10,  where  this  title  first  ap- 
pears), has  come  to  make  war  against  it. 

But  what,  it  may  be  asked,  could  have  been  the  motive 
to  this  testimony,  thus  borne?  It  is  strange  that  the 
evil  spirit  should,  without  compulsion,  proclaim  to  the 
world  the  presence  in  the  midst  of  it  of  the  Holy  One  of 
God,  of  Him  who  should  thus  bring  all  the  unholy,  on 
which  he  battened  and  by  which  he  lived,  to  an  end. 
Might  we  not  rather  expect  that  he  should  have  denied, 
or  sought  to  obscure,  the  glory  of  his  person  ?  It  cannot 
be  replied  that  this  was  an  unwilling  confession  to  the 
truth,  forcibly  extorted  by  Christ's  superior  power,  seeing 

1  'Ea,  not  the  imperative  from  icno,  but  an  interjection  of  terror,  wrung 
out  by  the  0o/3foa  tKcnyi)  Kpimwi;  (Ileb.  X.  27), — unless  indeed  the  inter- 
jection -was  originally  this  imperative.  Our  own  lo  (=look)  has  exactly 
such  a  history. 

*  'Sa^.ipijvoc  here,  and  Murk  xiv.  67;  xvi.  6.  The  word  appears  in  the 
New  Testament  in  two  other  forms,  "Sa^apclog  (Matt.  ii.  23;  xxvi.  71  j 
John  xviii.  7),  and  ^a^wpaiog  (Mark  x.  47,  and  often). 


246  THE  DEMONIAC  IN  THE 

that  it  displeased  Him  in  whose  favour  it  professed  to  be 
borne,  and  this  so  much  that  He  at  once  stopped  the 
mouth  of  the  utterer.'  It  remains  then  either,  with 
Theophylact  and  Grotius,  to  understand  this  as  the  cry  of 
abject  and  servile  fear,  that  with  fawning  and  flatteries 
would  fain  avert  from  itself  the  doom  which  with  Christ's 
presence  in  the  world  must  evidently  be  near ; — to  com- 
pare, as  Jerome  does,  this  exclamation  to  that  of  the 
fugitive  slave,  dreaming  of  nothing  but  stripes  and 
torments  when  he  encounters  unawares  his  well-known 
lord,  and  now  seeking  by  any  means  to  deprecate  his 
anger ;  ^ — or  else  to  regard  this  testimony  as  intended 
only  to  injure  the  estimation  of  Him  in  whose  behalf  it 
was  rendered.  There  was  hope  that  the  truth  itself  might 
be  brought  into  suspicion  and  discredit,  thus  receiving 
attestation  from  the  spirit  of  lies : '  and  these  confessions 
of  Jesus  as  the  Christ  may  have  been  meant  to  traverse 
and  mar  his  work,  even  as  we  see  Mark  iii.  22  following 
hard  on  Mark  iii.  11.  The  fact  that  Christ  would  not 
allow  this  testimony,  that  He  *rehulcecl  him,  saying,  Hold 
thy  peace,  and  come  out  of  him,'*  goes  some  way  to  make 
this  the  preferable  explanation.  Observe  it  is  not  here  as 
elsewhere  'The  Lord  rehuJce  thee*  (Jude  9;  cf.  Acts  xvi.  18), 

*  ^ii.tw9r]Ti,  cf.  Matt.  xxii.  12 ;  and  for  the  word  used  in  its  literal  sense, 
I  Cor.  ix.  9. 

'^  Grotius :  Vult  Jesum  blanditiis  deraulcere,  cui  se  certando  imparera 
erat  expertua.  Jerome  {Comm.  in  Matt,  ix.) :  Velut  si  servi  fugitivi 
post  multum  temporis  domiiium  suum  videantj  nihil  aliud  nisi  de  ver- 
beribus  deprecantur. 

5  Thus,  with  a  slight  difference,  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc.  iv.  7) :  Incre- 
puit  eum  Jesus,  plane  ut  invidiosum  et  in  ipsa  confessione  petulantem  et 
male  adulantem,  quasi  haec  esset  summa  gloria  Christi,  si  ad  perditionem 
dfemonum  venisset,  et  non  potius  ad  hominum  salutem. 

■*  Tertullian  i^Ado.  Marc,  iv.  8):  Illius  erat,  praeconium  immundi  spiri- 
tus  respuere,  cui  Sancti  abundabant,  Calvin  :  Duplex  potest  esse  ratio, 
cur  loqui  non  sineret :  una  generalis,  quod  nondum  maturum  plenae  reve- 
lationis  tempus  advenerat.;  altera  specialis,  quod  illos  repudiaba.t  prsecones 
ac  testes  suiB  divinitatis,  qui  laude  sua  nihil  aliud  quam  maculam,  et 
sinistram  opinionem  aspergere  illi  poterant.  Atque  hsec  posterior  indubia 
est,  quia  testatum  oportuit  esse  hostile  dissidium,  quod  habebat  seternoa 
salutis  et  vitas  auctor  cum  mortis  »principe  ej  usque  ministris. 


SYNAGOGUE  AT  CAPERNAUM.  247 

but  He  rebukes  in  his  own  name  and  by  his  own 
authority. 

But  can  that  word  of  his  be  affirmed  to  have  been  in 
this  case  the  word  of  power,  against  which  all  reluctance 
was  idle,  that  we  might  justly  expect  ?  Christ  has  bidden 
the  evil  spirit  to  hold  his  peace,  and  yet  in  the  next  verse 
we  learn  that  only  after  '  he  had  torn  him,  and  cried  with 
a  loud  voice,  he  came  out  of  him '  (cf.  Acts  viii.  7).  But  in 
truth  he  was  obedient  to  this  command  of  silence  ;  he  did 
not  spealc  any  more,  and  that  was  what  our  Lord  forbade  : 
this  loud  cry  was  nothing  but  an  inarticulate  utterance  of 
rage  and  pain.  Neither  is  there  any  contradiction  between 
St.  Luke,  who  says  that  the  evil  spirit  *  hurt  him  not,*  and 
St.  Mark,  who  describes  him  as  having  'torn  him.*  He 
did  not  do  him  any  permanent  injury;  what  harm  he 
could  work,  this  no  doubt  he  did.  St.  Luke  himself 
reports  that  he  cast  him  on  the  ground ;  with  which  the 
phrase  of  the  second  Evangelist,  that  he  threw  him  into 
strong  convulsions,  in  fact  consents.  We  have  at  Mark 
ix.  26  (cf.  Luke  ix.  42)  an  analogous  case,  although  there 
a  paroxysm  more  violent  still  accompanies  the  going  out 
of  the  foal  spirit;  for  what  the  devil  cannot  keep  as  his 
own,  he  will,  if  he  can,  destroy ;  even  as  Pharaoh  never 
treated  the  children  of  Israel  so  ill  as  then  when  they 
were  just  escaping  from  his  grasp.  Something  similar  is 
evermore  finding  place;  and  Satan  tempts,  plagues,  and 
buffets  none  so  fiercely  as  those  who  are  in  the  act  of 
being  delivered  from  his  tyranny  for  ever. 

St.  Mark  never  misses  an  opportunity  of  recording  the 
wonderful  impression  which  Christ's  miracles  made  on  the 
witnesses  of  them, — the  astonishment,  the  amazement, 
with  which  these  were  filled  (v.  20;  vi.  51;  vii.  37;  x.  26). 
He  lays  nowhere  greater  emphasis  on  this  than  here : 
'And  they  were  all  amazed,  insomuch  that  they  questioned 
among  themselves,  saying.  What  thing  is  this  ?  What  new 
doctrine  is  this  ?  For  with  authority  commandeth  He  even 
the  unclean  spirits,  and  they  do  obey  Him.' 


1 3.  THE  HEALING   OF  SIMON'S   WIFE'S  MOTHEH. 

Matt.  viii.  14-175  Mark  i.  29-31 ;  Ltjke  iv.  38-40. 

n^HIS  miracle  is  by  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  linked  imme- 
-L  diatelj,  and  in  a  manner  that  marks  historic  con- 
nexion, witli  that  which  has  just  come  under  our  notice. 
Thus  St.  Mark :  *  And  forthwith  when  they  were  come  out  of 
the  synagogue,  they  entered  into  the  house  of  Simon  and 
Andrew.'  In  St.  Luke  it  is  only  ^  Simon'' s  house ','^  his 
stronger  personality  causing  Andrew,  though  probably 
with  natural  prerogatives,  as  an  elder  brother,  and  cer- 
tainly with  spiritual,  as  the  earlier  called  and  the  bringer 
of  his  brother  to  Jesus,  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  fall  into  the 
background.  It  was  probably  to  eat  bread  that  the  Lord 
on  this  Sabbath  day  entered  into  that  house.  ^  And 
when  Jesus  was  come  into  Peter's  house,  He  saw  his  wife's 
mother  laid  and  sich  of  a  fever,' — '  a  great  fever,'  as  St. 
Luke  informs  us,  who  also  mentions  the  intercession  of 
some  on  her  behalf j  'they  besought  Him  for  her.'  We  owe 
to  him  also  the  remarkable  phrase,  *  He  rehuTced  the  fever,' 
as  on  another  occasion  that  *  He  rebuJced  the  winds  and  the 
sea'  (Luke  viii.  24).  St.  Matthew  alone  records  that  'He 
touched  her  hand'  (cf.  Dan.  x.  16;  Eev.  i.  17;  Luke  vii.  14; 

^  Maldonatus  is  greatly  troubled  that  Peter,  -who  before  this  had  *  left 
all,'  should  be  supposed  to  have  a  house,  militating,  as  this  -would  do, 
against  the  perfection  of  his  state.  His  explanation  and  that  of  most 
Roman  Catholic  expositors  is,  that  this  house  had  been  Peter's,  but  had 
been  made  over  by  him  to  his  wife's  mother,  when  he  determined  to  fol- 
low Christ  in  the  absolute  renunciation  of  all  things.  The  explanation 
is  needless;  the  renunciation  was  entire  in  will  (see  Matt.  xix.  27),  and 
ready  in  act  to  be  carried  out  into  all  its  details,  as  the  necessity  arose. 


HEALING   OF  SIMON'S    WIFE'S  MOTHER.    249 

viii.  54).  From  that  life-giving  touch,  health  and  strength 
flowed  into  her  wasted  frame;  'the  fever  left  her,*  and  left 
her  not  in  that  state  of  extreme  weakness  and  exhaustion 
which  fever  usually  leaves  behind,  when  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  things  it  has  abated ; '  not  slowly  convalescent ; 
but  cured  so  perfectly  that  '  immediately  she  arose,  and 
ministered  unto  them'  (cf.  John  iv.  52), — providing  for 
those  present  what  was  necessary  for  their  entertainment; 
— a  pattern,  it  has  been  often  observed,  to  all  restored  to 
spiritual  health,  that  they  should  use  this  strength  in 
ministering  to  Christ  and  to  his  people.'^ 

The  fame  of  this  miracle,  following  close  upon  another 
wrought  on  the  same  day,  spread  so  rapidly,  that  '  ivhen 
the  even  was  come*  or  ' when  the  sun  did  set,'  as  St.  Mark 
has  it,  '  they  brought  unto  Him  many  that  were  possessed 
with  devils ;  and  He  cast  out  the  spirits  with  his  word,  and 
healed  all  that  were  sick.*  There  are  two  explanations  of 
this  little  circumstance,  by  all  three  Evangelists  carefully 
recorded,  that  not  till  the  sun  was  setting  or  had  actually 
set  they  brought  their  sick  to  Jesus.  Hammond  and 
Olshausen  suggest,  that  they  waited  till  the  heat  of  the 
middle  day,  which  these  were  ill  able  to  bear,  was  past, 
and  brought  them  in  the  cool  of  the  evening.  Others 
assume  that  this  day  being  a  Sabbath  (cf.  Mark  i.  21,  ig, 
32),  they  were  unwilling  to  violate  its  sacred  rest;  which 
in  their  owna  esteem  they  would  have  done,  bringing  out 
their  sick  before  the  close  of  that  day,  that  is,  before 
sunset.     Thus  Chrysostom,  on  one  occasion,'  although  on 

^  Jerome  (Cotnm.  in  Matt,  in  loc.)  observes  this:  Natura  liominum 
istiusmodi  est,  ut  post  febrim  magis  lassescant  corpora,  et  iucipieute 
sanitate  segrotationis  mala  eentiant.  Verum  sanitas  qute  confertur  a 
Domino  totum  simul  reddit,  nee  sufScit  esse  sanatam,  sed  ut  eTiVrto-it 
fortitudinis  indicetur,  additum  est,  Et  surrexit  et  ministrabat  eis. 

*  Gerhard  (^Ilarm.  Eoang.  38):  Simul  vero  docemur,  quando  spirituali- 
ter  sanati  sumus,  ut  membra  nostra  praebeamus  arma  justitise  Dei  [DeoPj 
et  ipsi  serviamus  in  justitia  et  sanctitate  coram  ipso,  inservientes  proximo, 
et  membris  Christi  sicut  htec  muliercula  Christo  et  discipulis  ministrat. 

^  In  Cramer,  Catena,  vol,  i.  p.  278. 


250  THE  SEALING   OF 

another  lie  sees  here  more  generally  an  evidence  of  the 
faith  and  eagerness  of  the  people,  who,  even  when  the  day- 
was  spent,  stiU  came  streaming  to  Christ,  and  laying  their 
sick  before  Him. 

AU  this  found  place,  as  St.  Matthew  tells  ns,  '  that  it 
might  he  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  hy  Esaias  the  projphet, 
saying,  Himself  tooJc  our  infirmities  and  hare  our  sicTcnesses.' 
Not  a  few  have  seized  on  this  *  that  it  might  he  fulfilled  '  as 
a  proof  that  St.  Matthew  did  not  see  any  reference  in  the 
passage  which  he  cites  from  Isaiah  (liii.  4)  to  the  vicarious 
and  atoning  work  of  the  Christ ;  and  even  allowing  that 
there  was  there  a  prophecy  of  Him  as  a  remover  of  the 
world's  woe,  yet  not  as  Himself  coming  under  that  woe 
that  so  He  might  remove  it.  Few  will,  I  suppose,  at  this 
day  deny  that  such  a  sense  lies  in  the  original  words  of 
Isaiah,  that  his  *  took '  is  not  merely  *  removed,'  nor  his 
*  bare,'  *  bare  away ; ' '  his  image  being  rather  that  of  one 
who,  withdrawing  a  crushing  burden  from  the  shoulder  of 
another,  submits  to  it  his  own.  But  this  interpretation  of 
the  words,  so  distinctly  vindicated  for  them  by  St.  Peter 
(i  Pet.  ii.  24),  St.  Matthew  in  no  way  denies.  That 
'Himself  with  which  he  commences  his  citation,  implying 
as  it  does  a  reaction  in  some  shape  or  other  of  the  cures 
wrought,  upon  Him  who  wrought  them,  is  decisive  upon 
this  point ;  not  to  say  that  the  two  verbs  which  he  uses  ^ 
refuse  to  lend  themselves  to  any  other  interpretation. 
Doubtless  there  is  a  diflficulty,  or  difi&culties  rather,  for 
there  are  two,  about  this  citation — the  first,  why  St. 
Matthew  should  bring  it  at  all  into  connexion  with  the 
healing  of  the  bodily  diseases  of  men ;  and  the  second, 
how  there  should  have  been  any  more  real  fulfilment  of  it 
herein,  than  in  every  other  part  of  the  earthly  ministry  of 

'  Tertullian  indeed  so  quotes  the  words  from  his  old  Latin  version 
{Adv.  Marc.  iii.  17):  Ipse  enim  itnbecillitates  nostras  absttilit,  et  lan- 
guores  portavit ;  but  the  Vulgate  more  correctly,  Vera  languores  nostroa 
ipse  tidit,  et  dolores  nostros  ipse  portavit 

'  'E\a/3«,  i(3dara(je. 


SIMON'S   WIFE'S  MOTHER.  251 

Christ.  The  first  of  these  difficulties  is  easily  disposed  of. 
The  connexion,  above  all  as  traced  in  Scripture,  is  so 
intimate  between  sin  and  suffering,  death  (and  disease  is 
death  beginning)  is  so  directly  the  consequence  of  sin,  all 
the  weight  of  woe  which  rests  upon  the  world  is  in  one 
sense  so  distinctly  penal,  that  the  Messiah  might  be 
regarded  equally  as  in  his  proper  work,  as  fulfilling  the 
prophecies  which  went  before  concerning  Him,  whether 
He  were  removing  the  sin,  or  removing  the  sickness, 
sorrow,  pain,  which  are  the  results  of  the  sin,  the  disorder 
of  our  moral  being  or  of  our  physical. 

The  other  question  is  one  of  a  more  real  embarrassment. 
The  words  of  St.  Matthew,  as  of  the  prophet  from  whom 
he  draws  them,  certainly  imply,  as  we  have  seen,  an 
assuming  upon  the  part  of  the  Lord  of  the  sicknesses  and 
infirmities  from  which  He  delivered  others.  But  how 
could  this  be  ?  In  what  true  sense  could  our  Lord  be  said 
to  bear  the  sicknesses,  or  Himself  to  take  the  infirmities, 
which  He  healed  ?  Did  He  not  rather  abolish,  and  remove 
them  altogether?  It  is,  no  doubt,  a  perfectly  scriptural 
thought,  that  Christ  is  the  Kadapfia,  the  <f}dpfiaKov,  the 
piaculum,  who  shall  draw  to  Himself  and  absorb  all  the 
evils  of  the  world,  in  whom  they  shall  all  meet,  that  in 
Him  they  all  may  be  done  away ;  yet  He  did  not  become 
this  through  the  healing  of  diseases,  any  more  than  through 
any  other  isolated  acts  of  his  earthly  ministry.  We  can 
understand  his  being  said  in  his  death  and  passion  to  have 
come  Himself  under  the  burden  of  those  sufferings  and 
pains  from  w^hich  He  released  others ;  but  how  can  this  be 
affirmed  of  Him  when  engaged  in  works  of  beneficent 
activity  ?  Then  He  was  rather  chasing  away  diseases  and 
pains  altogether,  than  Himself  undertaking  them. 

An  explanation  has  found  favour  with  many,  suggested 

by  the  fact  that  his  labours  this  day  did  not  end  with  the 

day,  but  reached  far  into  the  evening ; — so  that  He  removed, 

indeed,  sicknesses   from  others,  but  with  painfulness  to 

17 


252  THE  HEALING   OF 

Himself,  and  witli  the  -weariness  attendant  upon  toils 
unseasonably  drawn  out ;  and  tlius  may  not  unfitly  be  said 
to  have  taken  those  sicknesses  on  Himself.'  Olshausen 
adopts,  though  in  somewhat  more  spiritual  a  manner,  this 
explanation.  The  obscurity  of  the  passage,  he  says,  only 
disappears  when  we  learn  to  think  more  really  of  the 
healing  activity  of  Christ,  as  an  actual  outstreaming  and 
outbreathing  of  the  fulness  of  his  inner  life.  As  therefore 
physical  exertion  physically  wearied  Him  (John  iv.  6),  so 
did  spiritual  activity  long  drawn  out  spiritually  exhaust 
Him  ;  and  this  exhaustion,  as  all  other  forms  of  suffering. 
He  underwent  for  our  sakes.  The  statement  is  questionable 
in  doctrine :  moreover,  I  cannot  believe  that  the  Evangelist 
meant  to  lay  any  such  stress  upon  the  unusual  or  prolonged 
labours  of  this  day,  or  would  not  as  freely  have  cited  these 
words  in  relating  any  other  cures  which  the  Lord  performed. 
Not  this  day  only,  even  had  it  been  a  day  of  especial 
weariness,  but  every  day  of  his  earthly  life  was  a  coming 
under,  upon  his  part,  those  evils  which  He  removed  from 
others.  For  that  which  is  the  law  of  all  true  helping, 
namely,  that  the  burden  which  you  would  lift,  you  must 
yourself  stoop  to  and  come  under  (Gal.  vi.  2),  the  grief 
which  you  would  console,  you  must  yourself  feel  with, — a 
law  which  we  witness  to  as  often  as  we  use  the  words 
*  sympathy '  and  *  compassion,* — was  truest  of  all  in  Him 
upon  whom  the  help  of  all  was  laid.'     Not  in  this  single 

^  So  Woltzogen,  wliom,  despite  his  Socinian  tendencies,  here  Witsius 
(JMeletem.  Leidens.  p.  402)  quotes  with  approbation :  Adeo  ut  locus  hie 
prophetse  bis  fuerit  adimpletus ;  semel  cum  Christus  corporis  morbos 
abstulit  ab  hominibus  non  sine  summa  molestia  ac  defatigatione,  dum  ad 
vesperam  usque  circa  segrorum  curationem  occupatus,  quodammodo  ipsas 
hominum  segritudines  in  se  recipiebat.  .  .  .  Altera  vice,  cum  suis  perpes- 
sionibus  ac  morte  spiritualiter  morbos  nostrorum  peccatorum  a  nobia  sus- 
tulit,  Cf.  Grotius,  in  loc.  Theophylact  had  led  the  way  to  this  explana- 
tion, finding  an  emphasis  in  the  fact  that  the  sick  were  brought  to  Jesus 
in  the  evening,  out  of  season  (7^,0(1  Kaipot),  though  he  does  not  bring  that 
circumstance  into  connexion  with  these  words  of  Isaiah. 

^  Hilary  (in  loc.) :  Passione  corporis  sui  infirmitates  humanse  imbe- 
cillitatis  absorbens.  Schoettgen  {Hor.  Heh.  in  loc.)  has  a  remarkable 
quotation  to  the  same  effect  from  the  book  Sohar. 


SIMON'S   WIFE'S  MOTHER.  253 

aspect  of  his  life,  namely,  that  He  was  a  healer  of  sicknesses, 
■were  these  words  of  the  prophet  fulfilled,  but  rather  in  the 
life  itself,  which  brought  Him  in  contact  with  the  thousand 
forms  of  want  and  woe,  of  discord  in  man's  outward  life,  of 
discord  in  man's  inner  being.  Every  one  of  these,  as  a 
■/•eal  consequence  of  sin,  and  at  every  moment  contemplated 
by  Him  as  such,  pressed  with  a  living  pang  into  the  holy 
soul  of  the  Lord.  St.  Matthew  quotes  these  words  in 
reference  to  one  day  of  our  Lord's  work  upon  earth ;  but 
we  only  enter  into  their  full  force  when  we  recognize  that, 
eminently  true  of  that  day, — and  here  we  may  fitly  urge 
its  long  and  exhausting  toils,— rthey  were  also  true  of  all 
other  days,  and  of  all  other  aspects  of  that  ministry  which 
He  came  into  the  world  to  fulfil.  He  bore  these  sicknesses, 
inasmuch  as  He  bore  that  mortal  suffering  life,  in  which 
alone  He  could  bring  them  to  an  end,  and  finally  swallow 
up  death,  and  all  that  led  to  death,  in  victory. 


14.  THE  RAISING  OF  THE  WIDOW'S  SON. 

Ltjke  vii.  11-16. 

ST.  LTJKE  is  the  only  Evangelist  "wlio  tells  us  of  more 
tlian  one  •whom  the  Lord  raised  from  the  dead.  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Mark  tell  ns  only  of  Jairus'  daughter ; 
St.  John  only  of  Lazarus.  St.  Luke,  recording  the  first 
of  these  miracles  in  common  with  the  two  earlier  Evan- 
gelists, has  this  one  which  is  peculiarly  his  own.  *  And  it 
came  to  pass  the  day  after  that  He  went  into  a  city  called 
Nain.'  That  healing  of  the  centurion's  servant  at  a 
distance  and  with  a  word  was  no  doubt  a  great  miracle ; 
but  *  the  day  after '  was  to  see  a  far  mightier  and  more 
wonderful  work  even  than  this.  Nain  is  not  mentioned 
elsewhere  in  Scripture.  It  lay  upon  the  southern  border 
of  Galilee,  and  on  the  road  to  Jerusalem,  whither  our  Lord 
was  probably  now  going  to  keep  the  second  passover  of  his 
open  ministry.  Dean  Stanley  points  out  its  exact  position, 
and  even  the  spot  where  this  mighty  work  must  have  been 
wrought ;  *  On  the  northern  slope  of  the  rugged  and 
barren  ridge  of  Little  Hermon,  immediately  west  of  Endor, 
which  lies  in  a  further  recess  of  the  same  range,  is  the 
ruined  village  of  Nain.  No  convent,  no  tradition  marks 
the  spot.  But,  under  these  circumstances,  the  name  is 
sufficient  to  guarantee  its  authenticity.  One  entrance 
alone  it  could  have  had — that  which  opens  on  the  rough 
hill-side  in  its  downward  slope  to  the  plain.  It  must  hare 
been  in  this  steep  descent,  as,  according  to  Eastern  custom, 
they  "  carried  out  the  dead  man,"  that  "  nigh  to  the  gate  " 


THE  RAISING   OF  THE    WIDOWS  SON.     255 

of  the  village,  the  bier  was  stopped,  and  the  long  proces- 
sion of  mourners  stayed,  and  "the  young  man  delivered 
back  "  to  his  mother.'  'And  many  of  his  disciples  went  with 
Him,  and  much  people.  Now  when  He  came  nigh  to  the  gate 
of  the  city,  behold,  there  was  a  dead  man  carried  out,  1  the 
only  son  of  his  mother,  and  she  was  a  widow,  and  much  people 
of  the  city  was  with  her.'*  It  was  thus  ordained  in  the 
providence  of  God  that  the  witnesses  of  this  miracle  should 
be  many ;  the  '  much  people '  that  were  with  the  Lord, 
in  addition  to  the  'much  people'  which  accompanied  the 
funeral  procession.  The  circumstance  of  his  meeting  this 
at  *  the  gate  of  the  city,'  while  it  belonged  to  the  wonder- 
works of  God's  grace,  being  one  of  those  coincidences  which, 
seeming  accidental,  are  yet  deep  laid  in  the  councils  of  his 
grace,  is  at  the  same  time  a  natural  incident,  and  is  ac- 
counted for  by  the  fact  that  the  Jews  did  not  suffer  to  inter 
the  dead  among  the  living,  but  buried  them  without  the 
walls  of  their  cities.  Even  they  who  were  touched  with  no 
such  lively  sense  of  human  sorrows  as  was  He  who  made 
all  sorrows  his  own,  might  have  been  moved  and  doubtless 
were  moved  to  compassion  here.  Indeed,  it  would  be  hard 
to  render  the  picture  of  desolation  more  complete  than  in 
two  strokes  the  Evangelist  has  done,  whose  whole  narrative 
here,  ajDart  from  its  deeper  interest,  is  a  master-work  for 
its  perfect  beauty.^  The  bitterness  of  the  mourning  for  an 
only  son  had  passed  mto  a  proverb ;  thus  compare  Jer.  vi. 
26  :  'Make  thee  mourning  as  for  an  only  son,  most  bitter 
lamentation;'  Zech.  xii.  10:  *They  shall  mourn  for  Him 
as  one  moumeth  for  his  only  sou ; '  and  Amos  viii.  i  o  :  '  I 
will  make  it  as  the  mourning  of  an  only  son. '     And  as 

*  'RKtKO[ii^iTo.     The  more  technical  word  is  sKcpeptiv,  and  the  carrying 

out,  tK<popa. 

^  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  himself  a  great  master,  but  in  a  more  artificial 
and  elaborate  style,  of  narration,  has  called  attention  to  this  (7)e  IIo7n. 
Opifie,  C.  25):  rioXXd  5i'  6\iy(i)v  SirjytiTai  ■>)  iaropia'  Gptji'og  avriKpvQ  (an  to 
Ci))y7]na'  ....  op^c  '■o  (3c(pog  rjjt'  avfipopac,  ttw^  iv  oXiyti)  to  ndOog  6  \6yoQ 
iKt~pay<{i^q(ji. 


2S6  THE  BAISING   OF 

this  mourning,  so  not  less  the  desolation  of  a  widow  (Ruth 
i.  20,  21 ;  I  Tim.  v.  5  ;  Job  xxiv.  3). 

*  And  when  the  Lord  saw  her,  He  had  compassion  on  her, 
and  said  unto  her.  Weep  not.'  How  different  this  '  Weep 
not,''  from  the  idle  *  Weep  not,'  which  so  often  proceeds 
from  the  lips  of  earthly  comforters,  who,  even  while  they 
thus  speak,  give  no  reason  why  the  mourner  should  cease 
from  weeping.  But  He  who  came  down  from  heaven,  one 
day  to  make  good  that  word,  '  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears 
from  their  eyes,  and  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain ' 
(Rev.  xxi.  4),  shows  now  some  effectual  glimpses  and 
presages  of  his  power;  wiping  away,  though  as  yet  it 
may  not  be  for  ever,  the  tears  from  the  weeping  eyes  of 
that  desolate  mother.  At  the  same  time,  as  Olshausen  has 
observed,  we  must  not  suppose  that  compassion  for  the 
mother  was  the  determining  motive  for  this  mighty 
spiritual  act  on  the  part  of  Christ :  for  then,  had  the  joy 
of  the  mother  been  the  only  object  which  He  intended,  the 
young  man  who  was  raised  would  have  been  used  merely 
as  a  means,  which  no  man  can  ever  be.  The  joy  of  the 
mother  was  indeed  the  nearest  consequence  of  the  act,  but 
not  the  final  cause ; — that,  though  at  present  hidden,  was, 
no  doubt,  the  spiritual  awakening  of  the  young  man  for  a 
higher  life,  through  which  alone  the  joy  of  the  mother 
could  become  true  and  abiding. 

'And  He  came  and  touched  the  hierJ'  The  intimation  was 
rightly  interpreted  by  those  for  whom  it  was  intended; 
*  and  they  that  hare  him  stood  stilU  Then  follows  the  word 
of  power :  *  Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise.'  It  is  spoken, 
as  in  every  instance  in  his  own  name,' — '  I,  who  am  the 
Prince  of  life,  who  have  the  keys  of  death  and  the 
grave,  quickening  the  dead,  and  calling  those  things  which 
are  not,  as  though  they  were,  bid  thee  to  live. '  And  that 
word  of  his  was  potent  in  the  kingdom  of  death  ;  *  he  that 
»  See  back,  p,  39. 


THE  WIDOW'S   SOX.  257 

was  dead  sat  i(p,  and  began  to  speah.'  Christ  raises  from 
the  bier  as  easily  as  another  from  the  bed,' — putting  a  dif- 
ference here  between  Himself  and  his  own  messengers  and 
ministers;  for  they,  only  with  prayer  and  effort  (i  Kin. 
xvii.  20-22  ;  cf.  Acts  ix.  40),  or  after  a  long  and  patient 
exercise  of  love  (2  Kin.  iv.  34),  won  back  his  prey  from  the 
jaws  of  death  ;  the  absolute  fulness  of  power  dwelling  not 
in  them,  who  were  but  as  seiTants  in  the  house  of 
another,  and  not  as  He,  a  Son  in  his  own.^  So,  too,  in 
heathen  legend,  she 

'Whom  Jove's  great  son  to  her  glad  husband  gave/' 

is  only  rescued  by  force  and  after  a  terrible  conflict  from 
the  power  of  Death. 

*  And  he  delivered  Mm,  to  his  mother '  (cf.  i  Kin.  xvii.  23 ; 
2  Kin.  iv.  36).  Faint  prelude  this  of  that  which  He  has  in 
store ;  for  not  otherwise  shall  He  once,  when  his  great 
*  Arise '  shall  have  awakened  not  one,  but  all  the  dead, 
deliver  as  many  as  have  fallen  asleep  in  Him  to  their  be- 
loved, for  mutual  recognition  and  for  a  sj)ecial  fellowship 
of  joy.  We  have  the  promise  and  pledge  of  this  in  the 
three  quickenings  of  the  dead  which  prefigure  that  Coming 
resurrection.  '  And  there  came  a  fear  on  all '  (cf.  Mark  i.  27 ; 
V.  15  ;  Luke  v.  9), '  afid  they  glorified  God '  (cf.  Matt.  ix.  8  ; 
Mark  ii.  12),  'saying.  That  a  great  prophet  is  risemip  among 

*  Augustine  (Semi,  xcviii.  2):  Nemo  tarn  facile  excitat  in  lecto,  quam 
facile  Christus  in  sepulcro. 

*  See  what  has  been  said  already,  p.  34..  Massillon,  in  his  sermon, 
Sur  la  Divinite  de  Jesus-Christ,  has  these  eloquent  vrords  :  Elie  ressuscite 
des  morts,  il  est  vrai ;  mais  il  est  oblige  de  se  coucher  plusieurs  fois  sur 
le  corps  de  I'enfaut  qu'il  ressuscite :  il  souffle,  il  se  retrecit^  il  s'agite  :  on 
voit  bien  qu'il  invoque  une  puissance  etrangere  :  qu'il  rappelle  do  I'empire 
de  la  mort  une  ame  qui  n'est  pas  soumise  a  sa  voix :  et  qu'il  n'est  pas  lui- 
meme  le  maitre  de  la  mort  et  de  la  vie.  Jesus-Christ  ressuscite  les 
morts  corame  il  fait  les  actions  les  plus  communes :  il  parle  en  maitre  a 
ceux  qui  dorment  d'un  sommeil  ^ternel ;  et  Ton  sent  bien  qu'il  est  le 
Dieu  des  morts  conime  des  vivans,  jamais  plus  tranquille  que  lorsqu'il 
opere  les  plus  grandes  choses. 

'  See  the  Alcestis  of  Euripides,  849-861. 


258       THE  RAISING  OF   THE   WIDOWS  SON. 

uSf  and  that  God  hath  visited  his  people.'  This  could  be  no 
ordinary  prophet,  they  concluded  rightly,  since  none  but 
the  very  chiefest  in  the  olden  times,  an  Elijah  or  an  Elisha, 
had  revived  the  dead.  They  glorified  God,  that  with  the 
raising  up  of  so  great  a  prophet,  the  prophet  that  should 
come  (Deut.  xviii.  15;  John  i.  21,  46;  iv.  25;  vi.  14; 
Acts  iii.  22  ;  vii.  37),  He  had  brought  the  long  and  dreary 
period  to  a  close,  during  which  all  prophecy  had  been  silent. 
It  was  now  more  than  four  hundred  years  since  the  last  of 
the  Old  Testament  prophets  had  spoken,  and  the  faithful 
in  Israel  may  well  have  feared  that  there  should  now  be 
no  more  open  vision ;  that,  instead  of  living  voices  and 
words  with  power  from  prophets  in  direct  communica- 
tion with  God,  there  should  be  henceforward  nothing  for 
them  but  the  dead  words  of  Eabbis  and  doctors  of  the  law. 
We  may  a  little  understand  their  delight,  when  they  found 
that  God  had  still  his  ambassadors  to  men,  that  perhaps 
the  greatest  of  all  these  ambassadors  was  actually  among 
them.' 

^  Philostratus  (Vita  ApoUonii,  iv.  45)  ascribes  a  miracle  to  ApoUo- 
nius,  evidently  framed  in  imitation  and  rivalry  of  this  (on  this  rivalry 
eee  p.  67,  and  Baur,  Apollotiius  tmd  Chrisfns,  p.  40).  Apollonius  met 
one  day  in  the  streets  of  Rome  a  damsel  carried  out  to  burial,  followed 
by  her  betrothed  and  by  a  weeping  company.  He  bade  them  set  down 
the  bier,  saying  he  would  staunch  their  tears ;  and  having  inquired  her 
name,  whispered  something  in  her  ear,  and  then  taking  her  by  the  hand, 
he  raised  her  up,  and  she  began  straightway  to  speak,  and  returned  to 
her  father's  house.  Yet  Philostratus  does  not  relate  this  as  more,  pro- 
bably, than  an  awakening  from  the  deep  swoon  of  an  apparent  death 
(cKpvirviae  rt)v  kojjtjv  rov  Sokovi'toq  Bardrov),  and  Suggests  an  explanation 
which  reminds  of  the  modem  ones  of  Paulus  and  his  school, — that 
Apollonius  perceived  in  her  a  spark  of  life  which  had  escaped  the  notice 
of  physicians  and  attendants ;  but  whether  this,  or  that  he  did  indeed 
kindle  in  her  anew  the  extinguished  spark  of  life,  he  owns  it  impossible 
for  him,  as  it  was  for  the  bystanders,  to  say. 


5.  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  IMPOTENT  MAN 
AT  BE  THESE  A. 

John  v.  i-i6. 

rilEiii  ablest  commentator  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church 
J-  begins  his  observations  on  this  miracle  with  the 
utterance  of  his  hearty  wish  that  St.  John  had  added  one 
word,  and  told  us  at  what  ^  feast  of  the  Jews  '  it  was  wrought;^ 
seems  indeed  wellnigh  inclined  to  fall  out  with  him,  that 
he  has  not  so  done.  Certainly  a  vast  amount  of  learned 
discussion  would  so  have  been  sj)ared;  for  this  question 
has  been  much  debated,  and  with  an  interest  beyond  that 
which  intrinsically  belongs  to  it ;  for  it  affects  the  whole 
chronology  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  and  therefore  of  the 
ministry  of  our  Lord ;  seeing  that,  if  we  cannot  determine 
the  duration  of  that  ministry  from  the  helps  which  this 
Gospel  supplies,  we  shall  seek  in  vain  to  do  it  from  the 
others.  If  this  ^ feast  of  the  Jews  '  was  certainly  a  passover, 
then  St.  John  will  make  mention  of  four  passovers,  three 
besides  this  present,  namely,  ii.  13;  vi.  4;  and  the  last; 
and  we  shall  arrive  at  the  three  years  and  a  half,  the  half 
of  a  *  week  of  years,'  for  the  length  of  Christ's  ministry, 
which  many,  with  appearance  of  reason,  have  thought 
they  found  designated  beforehand  for  it  in  the  prophe- 
cies of  Daniel  (ix.  27).  But  if  this  be  a  feast  of  Pentecost, 
or,  as  in  later  times  has  found  acceptance  with  many,  of 
Purim,  then  the  half  week  of  years  which  seems  by 
prophecy  to  have  been  measured  out  for  the  duration  of 

*  Maldonatus :  Magna  nos  Joannes  molestia  contentioneque  liberasset, 
Bi  vel  unum  adiecisset  verbum,  quo  quis  ille  JudjTJorum  dies  fuisset  fostu3 
declarasset 


26o  THE  HEALIKG   OF  THE 

Messiah's  ministry,  however  likely  in  itself,  will  derive  no 
confirmation  from  dates  supplied  by  St.  John ;  nor  will  it 
be  possible  to  make  out  from  him,  with  any  certainty,  a 
period  of  more  than  between  two  and  three  years  from  our 
Lord's  baptism  to  the  time  when,  by  a  better  sacrifice.  He 
cause-'^  *  the  siorifice  and  the  oblation  to  coas?.' 

The  oldest  opinion  which  we  have  on  this  much- 
contested  point  is  that  of  Irenajus.  Replying  to  the 
Gnostics,  who  pressed  the  words  of  Isaiah, '  the  acceptable 
year  of  the  Lord,'  as  literally  restricting  our  Lord's 
ministry  to  a  single  year,  he  enumerates  the  several  pass- 
overs  which  He  kept,  and  expressly  includes  this.'  Origen, 
however,  and  the  Alexandrian  doctors,  who  drew  from 
Isaiah's  words  the  same  conclusions  which  the  Gnostics 
had  drawn,  did  not,  as  consistently  they  could  not,  agree 
with  Irenreus ;  nor  did  the  Greek  Church  generally ; 
Chrysostom,  Cyril,  Theophylact,  understanding  the  feast 
here  to  be  Pentecost.  At  a  later  period,  however, 
Theodoret,  wishing  to  confirm  his  interpretation  of  the 
half  week  in  Daniel,  refers  to  St.  John  in  proof  that  the 
Lord's  ministry  lasted  for  three  years  and  a  half,^  and 
thus  implies  that  for  him  this  feast  was  a  passover. 
Luther,  Calvin,  and  the  Reformers  generally  were  of  this 
mind ;  and  were  the  question  only  between  it  and  Pente- 
cost, the  point  would  have  been  settled  long  ago,  as  now 
on.  all  sides  the  latter  is  given  up. 

But  in  modem  times  another  scheme  has  been  started, 

-Kepler    was   its   first   author, — which   has   many   and 

weighty   sufirages   in   its   favour ;  to   wit,  that  we  have 

here  a  feast  of  Purim ;  that,  namely,  which  fell  just  before 

the  second  passover  in  our  Lord's  ministry,'  for  second,  and 

*  Con.  Hcer.  ii.  aa:  Secunda  vice  ascendit  in  diem  festum  Paschae  in 
Hierusalem,  quaudo  paralyticum  qui  juxta  natatoriam  jacebat  xxxviii. 
annos  curavit. 

^  Comm.  in  Dan.,  in  loc. 

*  Hug  has  done  everything  to  make  it  plausible;  and  it  numbers 
Tholuck,  Olsbausen,  Wieseler  (Chronol.  Synops.  p.  205.  seq.);  Ellicott 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETHESDA.  25 1 

not  tliird,  would  in  that  case  be  the  passover  which  St. 
John  presently  names  (John  vi.  4).  I  am  not  disposed  to 
accept  this  newer  disposition  of  the  times  and  seasons  of 
our  Lord's  life.  No  doubt  there  is  something  perplexing 
in  this  passover  being  so  soon  followed  by  another ;  though, 
if  we  accept  the  supplementary  character  of  St.  John's 
Gospel,  and  that  it  mainly  records  our  Lord's  ministry  in 
Judsea  and  Jerusalem,  on  which  the  other  Evangelists  had 
dwelt  so  little,  this  perplexity  will  disappear;  above  all, 
when  the  immediate  result  of  this  miracle  was  an  im- 
possibility to  tarry  there  (v.  16;  vi.  i).  Our  Translation 
speaks,  not  of  '  the  feast,'  but  '  a  feast,  of  the  Jews,'  and  it  is 
certainly  doubtful  whether  the  article  should  stand  in  the 
Greek  text  or  no ;  though  Tischendorf  has  restored  it  in 
his  last  edition,  and  it  is  found  in  that  oldest  of  all  MSS., 
the  Codex  Sinaiticus.  If  it  should  have  a  place  here,  and 
*  the  feast '  be  the  proper  rendering,  this  would  be  nearly 
decisive ;  for  all  other  feasts  so  fall  into  the  background 
for  a  Jew,  as  compared  with  the  passover,  that  '  the  feast,' 
with  no  further  addition  or  qualification,  could  hardly 
mean  any  other  feast  but  this  (John  iv.  45  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  15). 
Still  the  uncertainty  of  the  reading  will  not  allow  too  great 
a  weight  to  be  placed  on  this  argument.  That,  however, 
which  mainly  prevails  with  me  is  this — the  Evangelist 
clearly  connects,  though  not  in  as  many  words,  yet  by 
pregnant  juxtaposition,  the  Lord's  going  to  Jerusalem 
with  the  keeping  of  this  feast ;  for  this  He  went  up  (cf.  ii. 
13).  But  there  was  nothing  in  the  feast  of  Purim  to  draw 
Him  thither.  That  was  no  religious  feast  at  all  j  but  a 
popular ;  of  human,  not  of  divine,  institution.  No  temple 
service  pertained  to  it;  but  men  kept  it  at  their  own 
houses.     And  though  naturally  it  would  have  been  cele- 

(On  the  Life  of  our  Lord,  p.  135,  seq.),  Neander  (Leben  Jesu,  p.  430^ 
Jacobi  (Theol.  Stud.  «.  Krit.  vol.  xi.  p.  861,  seq.),  and  Liicke,  though 
this  last  somewhat  doubtfully,  among  its  adherents.  Ilengstenbero- 
(Christoloffie,  2d  ed.  vol.  iii.  pp.  180-189)  earnestly  opposes  it,  and  main- 
tains the  earlier  view ;  so  too  does  Ewald. 


262  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

brated  at  Jerusalem  with  more  pomp  and  circumstance 
than  anywhere  else,  yet  there  was  nothing  in  its  feasting 
and  its  rioting-,  its  intemperance  and  excess,  which  would 
have  made  our  Lord  particularly  desirous  to  sanction  it 
with  his  presence.  As  far  as  Mordecai  and  Esther  and  the 
deliverance  wrought  in  their  days  stand  below  Moses, 
Aaron,  and  Miriam,  and  the  glorious  redemption  from 
Egypt,  so  in  true  worth,  in  dignity,  in  religious  signifi- 
cance, stood  the  feast  of  Purim  below  the  feast  of  the 
passover ;  however  a  carnal  generation  may  have  been 
inclined  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  that,  in  the  past 
events  and  actual  celebration  of  which  there  was  so  much 
to  flatter  the  carnal  mind.  There  is  an  extreme  improba- 
bility in  the  suggestion  that  it  was  this  which  attracted 
our  Lord  to  Jerusalem ;  and  we  shall  do  well,  I  think,  to 
stand  here  upon  the  ancient  ways,  and  to  take  this  feast 
which  our  Lord  adorned  with  his  presence  and  signalized 
with  this  great  miracle,  as  '  the  feast,'  that  feast  which  was 
the  mother  of  all  the  rest,  the  passover. 

*  Now  there  is  at  Jerusalem,  by  the  sheep-marJcet  a  pool,^ 
which  is  called  in  the  Hebrew  tongue  Bethesda,^  having  five 
porches.**  For  many  centuries  the  large  excavation  near 
the  gate  now  called  St.  Stephen's,  has  been  pointed  out  as 

*  'Etti  tjj  irpojia-iKy  sbould  be  Completed,  not,  as  in  the  E.  V.,  with 
ayop^,  but  with  TTi'Xy  (see  Neh.  iii.  i;  xii.  39;  LXX,  tti-Atj  Trpo/^artic//), 
and  translated,  '  by  the  eheep-^«^'  not  *  by  the  shQe^-market.'' 
Ko\vfi[3li9pa  (cf.  John  ix.  7)  =  natatoria,  piscina  (so  Eccles.  ii.  6),  from 
KoXviJLiiaojf  to  dive  or  swim,  is  used  in  ecclesiastical  language  alike  for  the 
building  in  which  baptisms  are  performed  (the  baptistery),  and  the  font 
containing  the  water  (see  Suicer,  Thes.  s.  vv.  (iannaTiipiov  and  kq\v}x- 
(3!i9pu). 

^  B(;9f<TcVi  =  domus  misericordise.  Bengel  and  others  find  evidence 
here  that  this  Gospel  was  written  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
Yet  in  truth  this  inri  proves  nothing.  St.  John  might  still  have  said, 
*  There  is  at  Jerusalem  a  pool,'  that  having  survived  the  destruction ;  or 
might  have  written  with  that  vivid  recollection,  which  caused  him  to 
speak  of  the  past  as  existing  yet.  The  various  reading,  iju  for  iari,  is  to 
be  traced  to  transcribers,  who  being  rightly  persuaded  that  this  Gospel 
was  composed  after  the  destruction  of  the  city,  thought  that  St.  John 
must  have  so  written. 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETIIESDA.  263 

the  ancient  Betliesda.'  It  is  true  that  its  immense  depth, 
seventy-five  feet,  had  j)erplexed  many ;  yet  the  '  incurious 
ease '  v^hich  has  misnamed  so  much  in  the  Holy  Land  and 
in  Jerusalem,  had  remained  veithout  being  seriously  chal- 
lenged, until  Eobinson,  among  the  many  traditions  which 
he  has  disturbed,  brought  this  also  into  question,  affirming 
that  '  there  is3  not  the  slightest  evidence  which  can  identify 
it  with  the  Bethesda  of  the  New  Testament.'  ^  Nor  does 
the  tradition  which  identifies  them  ascend  higher,  as  he 
can  discover,  than  the  thirteenth  century.  He  sees  in 
that  excavation  the  remains  of  the  ancient  fosse,  which 
protected  on  the  north  side  the  citadel  Antonia ;  and  the 
true  Bethesda  he  thinks  he  finds,  though  on  this  he  speaks 
with  hesitation,  in  what  now  goes  under  the  name  of  the 
Fountain  of  the  Virgin,  being  the  upper  fountain  of  Siloam." 

*  So  Eobr,  Palestina,  p.  66. 

*  Biblical  Researches,  vol.  i.  p.  489,  seq. ;  Later  Researches,  p.  249. 

'  He  was  himself  -witness  of  that  remarkable  phenomenon,  so  often 
mentioned  of  old,  as  by  Jerome  (In  Isai.  viii.) :  Siloe  .....  qui  non 
jugibus  aquis,  sed  in  certis  horls  diebusque  ebulliat;  et  per  terrarum 
concava  et  antra  saxi  dmissimi  cum  magno  sonitu  veniat ; — but  which 
had  of  late  fallen  quite  into  discredit, — of  the  waters  rapidly  bubbling 
up,  and  rising  with  a  gurgling  sound  in  the  basin  of  this  fountain,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  retreating  again.  When  he  was  present  they  rose 
nearly  or  quite  a  foot  {Researches,\o\.  i.  pp.  506-508,  For  other  modem 
testimonies  to  the  same  fact  see  Hengstenberg,  in  he,  who  has  gone 
carefully  and  fully  into  the  matter).  Prndentius,  whom  he  does  not 
quote,  has  anticipated  the  view  that  this  Siloam  is  Bethesda,  and  that  in 
this  phenomenon  is  '  the  tronbling  of  the  water ^  however  the  healing  virtue 
may  have  departed  {Apotheosis,  680). 

Variis  Siloa  refundit 
Momentis  latices,  nee  fluctum  semper  anhelat, 
Sed  vice  distincta  largos  lacus  accipit  haustus. 
Agmina  languentum  sitiunt  spem  fontis  avari, 
Membrorum  maculas  puro  abluitura  natatu  j 
Certatim  interea  roranti  pumice  raucas 
Expectant  scatebras,  et  sicco  margine  pendent. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  a  slip  of  memory,  with  the  confusion  of  this  passage 
with  John  ix.  7,  but  his  belief  in  the  identity  of  Siloam  and  Bethesda, 
which  makes  Irenoeus  (Con.  Hcer.iv.  8)  say  of  our  Lord:  Et  Siloa 
etiam  ssepe  sabbatis  curavit;  et  propter  hoc  assidebant  ei  multi  die 
eabbatorum. 


264  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

'In  these  lay  a  great  multitude  of  impotent  folic,  of  blind, 
halt  J  withered.'  Our  Version  is  sliglitlj  defective  here. 
It  leaves  an  impression  that  '  impotent  folk  '  is  the  genus, 
presently  subdivided  into  the  three  species,  '  blind,  halt, 
withered ; '  whereas,  mstead  of  three  being  thus  subordi- 
nated to  one,  all  four  are  coordinated  with  one  another. 
We  should  read  rather,  *  In  these  lay  a  great  multitude  of 
sick,  blind,  halt,  withered ; '  the  enumeration  by  four,  when 
meant  to  be  exhaustive,  being  very  frequent  in  Scripture 
(Ezelr.  xiv.  21;  Eev.  vi.  8;  Matt.  xv.  31).  The  words 
which  complete  this  verse,  '  waiting  for  the  moving  of  the 
water,'  lie  under  a  certain  suspicion,  as  the  verse  following 
has  undoubtedly  no  right  to  a  place  in  the  text.  That 
fourth  verse  the  most  important  Greek  and  Latin  copies 
are  alike  without,  and  most  of  the  early  Versions.  In 
other  MSS.  which  retain  this  verse,  the  obelus  which 
hints  suspicion,  or  the  asterisk  which  marks  rejection,  is 
attached  to  it;  while  those  in  which  it  appears  un- 
questioned belong  mostly,  as  Griesbach  shows,  to  a  later 
recension  of  the  text.  And  the  undoubted  spuriousness  of 
this  fourth  verse  has  spread  a  certain  amount  of  suspicion 
over  the  last  clause  of  the  verse  preceding,  which  has 
not,  however,  the  same  amount  of  diplomatic  evidence 
against  it,  nay,  in  some  sort  seems  almost  necessary  to 
make  the  story  intelligible.  Doubtless  whatever  here  is 
addition,  whether  only  the  fourth  verse,  or  the  last  clause 
also  of  the  third,  found  very  early  its  way  into  the  text ; 
we  have  it  as  early  as  Tertullian, — the  first  witness  for  its 
presence.^  The  baptismal  Angel,  a  favourite  thought  with 
him,  was  here  foreshown  and  typified ;  as  somewhat  later, 

*  De  Bapt.  5 :  Angelum  aquis  intervenire,  si  novum  videtur,  exem- 
plutn  futurum  prsecucurrit.  Piscinam  Betbsaida  angelus  interveniens 
comniovebat ;  observabant  qui  valetudineni  querebantur.  Nam  si  quis 
prsevenerat  descendere  illuc,  queri  post  lavacrum  desinebat,  Figura 
ista  medicines  coiporalis  spiritalem  medicinam  canebat,  ea  forma  qua 
eemper  carnalia  in  figura  spiritalium  antecedunt.  Proticiente  itaque 
hominibus  gratia  Dei  plus  aquis  et  angelo  accessit :  qui  vitia  corporis 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETHESDA.  265 

Ambrose'  saw  a  prophecy  of  the  descent  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  consecrating  the  waters  of  baptism  to  the  mystical 
washing  away  of  sin ;  and  Chrysostom  makes  frequent  use 
of  the  verse  in  this  sense.'*  At  first  probably  a  marginal 
note,  expressing  the  popular  notion  of  the  Jewish  Christians 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  healing  power  which  from" 
time  to  time  these  waters  possessed,  by  degrees  it  assumed 
the  shape  in  which  now  we  have  it :  for  there  are  marks  of 
growth  about  it,  betraying  themselves  in  a  great  variety 
of  readmgs, — some  copies  omitting  one  part,  and  some 
another  of  the  verse, — all  which  is  generally  the  sign  of  a 
later  addition :  thus,  little  by  little,  it  procui'ed  admission 
into  the  text,  probably  at  Alexandria  first,  the  birth-place 
of  other  similar  additions.  For  the  statement  itself,  there 
is  nothing  in  it  which  need  perplex  or  offend,  or  which 
might  not  have  found  place  in  St.  John.  It  rests  upon 
that  religious  view  of  the  world,  which  in  all  nature  sees 
something  beyond  and  behind  nature,  which  does  not 
believe  that  it  has  discovered  causes,  when,  in  fact,  it  has 
only  traced  the  sequence  of  phenomena ;  and  which  every- 
where recognizes  a  going  forth  of  the  immediate  power  of 
God,  invisible  agencies  of  his,  whether  personal  or  other- 
wise, accomplishing  his  will.'     That  Angels  should  be  the 

remediabant,  nunc  spiritum  medentur :  qui  temporalem  operabantur  sa- 
lutem,  nunc  peternam  reformant :  qui  unum  semel  anno  liberabant,  nunc 
quotidie  populos  conservant.  It  will  be  observed  that  he  calls  it  above, 
the  pool  Bethsaida  ;  this  is  not  by  accident,  for  it  recurs  (^Adv.  Jtid.  13), 
in  Augustine,  and  is  still  in  the  Vulgate. 

^  De  Spir.  Sand.  i.  7 :  Quid  in  hoc  typo  Angelus  nisi  descensio- 
nem  Sancti  Spiritus  nuntiabat,  quae  nostris  futura  temporibus,  aquas 
eacerdotalibus  invocata  precibus  consecraret?  and  De  Myst.  4:  Illia 
Angelus  descendebat,  tibi  Spiritus  Sanctus;  illis  creatura  movebatur, 
tibi  Christus  operatur  ipse  Dominus  creature. 

*  Thus  In  Joh.  Horn,  xxxvi.:  'As  there  it  was  not  simply  the 
nature  of  the  waters  which  healed,  for  then  they  would  have  always 
done  80,  but  when  was  added  the  energy  of  the  Angel ;  so  with  us,  it 
is  not  simply  the  water  which  works,  but  when  it  has  received  the  grace 
of  the  Spirit,  then  it  washes  away  all  sins.' 

'  Hammond's  explanation  of  this  phenomenon,  which  reads  like  a  leaf 
borrowed  from  Dr.  Paulus,  and  is  strange  as  coming  from  him,  early 
awoke  earnest  remonstrances  on  many  sides, — thus  see  Witjius  (Wolf, 


266  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

ministers  of  his  will  would  be  only  according  to  the  ana- 
logy of  other  Scripture  (Heb.  i.  7 ;  Rev.  vii.  2) ;  while  in 
*the  Angel  of  the  waters'  (Eev.  xvi.  5)  we  have  a  re- 
markable point  of  contact  with  the  statement  of  this 
verse. 

From  among  this  suffering  expectant  multitude  Christ 
singles  out  one  on  whom  to  display  his  power  ; — one  onlv, 
for  He  came  not  now  to  be  the  healer  of  men's  bodies, 
save  only  as  He  could  annex  to  this  healing  the  truer 
healing  of  their  souls  and  spirits.  '  And  a  certain  man  ivas 
there  which  had  an  infirmity  thirty  and  eight  years.'  ^     Some 

Cures,  in  loc).  The  medicinal  virtues  of  this  pool  -were  derived,  he 
supposes,  from  the  washing  in  it  the  carcases  and  entrails  of  the  beasts 
slain  for  sacrifices.  In  proof  that  they  were  here  washed,  he  quotes 
Brocardus,  a  monk  of  the  thirteenth  century !  whose  authority  would  be 
worth  nothing,  and  whose  words  are  these :  Intrantibus  porro  Portani 
Gregis  ad  sinistram  occurrit  piscina  probatica,  in  qua  Nathinoei  lavabant 
hostias  quas  tradebant  sacerdotibus  in  teraplo  offerendas;  that  is,  as  is 
plain,  washed  their  fleeces  before  delivering  them  to  he  offered  by  the 
priests.  Some  in  later  times,  knowing  that  the  sacrifices  were  washed 
in  the  temple  and  not  without  it,  amend  the  scheme  here,  suggesting  that 
the  blood  and  other  animal  matter  was  drained  off  by  conduits  into  this 
pool.  The  pool  possessed  these  healing  powers  only  at  intervals,  because 
only  at  the  great  feasts,  eminently  at  the  passover,  was  there  slain  any 
such  multitude  of  beasts  as  could  tinge  and  warm  those  waters,  con- 
stituting them  a  sort  of  animal  bath  for  the  time.  The  ayyfXof  is  not  an 
Angel,  but  a  messenger  or  servant,  sent  down  to  stir  the  waters,  that  the 
grosser  particles,  in  which  the  chief  virtue  resided,  but  which  as  heaviest 
would  have  sunk  to  the  bottom,  might  reinfuse  themselves  in  the  waters. 
The  fact  that  only  one  each  time  was  healed  he  explains,  that  probably 
the  pool  was  purposely  of  very  limited  dimensions,  for  the  concentrating 
of  its  virtues,  and  thus  would  contain  no  more — its  strength  by  evapora- 
tion or  otherwise  being  exhausted  before  place  could  be  made  for  another. 
He  has  here  worked  out  at  length  a  theory  which  Theophylact  men- 
tions, but  does  not,  as  Hammond  affirms,  accept.  These  are  his  words : 
EZxov  Si  ol  TToXXof  vn6\i]i\/iv,  on  koi  citto  f.wvov  rov  nXvi'iniiai  ra  tvrnaOia 
rail/  tfpiHov  iuvajnv  Tira  Xanf3di'n  PitoTfpcii'  to  vCMp,  Richter,  De  Balneo 
Animali,  p.  107,  quoted  by  Winer,  Reahoorterhuch,  s.  v.  Bethesda, 
favours  this  explanation :  Non  miror  fontem  tantii  adhuc  virtute  animali 
hostiarum  calentem,  quippe  in  proxima  loca  tempestive  eflusum,  ut  pro 
pleniori  partium  miscela  turbatum  triplici  maxime  infirmorum  classi, 
quorum  luculenter  genus  nervosum  laborabat,  profuisse ;  et  quia  animalis 
hoec  virtus  cito  cum  calore  aufugit,  et  vappam  inertem,  immo  putrem 
relinquit,  iis  tantum  qui  primi  ingTessi  sunt,  salutem  attulisse. 

^  These  'thirty  and  eight  gears/  answering  so  exactly  to  the  thirty-eight 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETITESDA.  267 

understand  this  poor  cripple — a  paralytic  probably  (cf. 
ver.  8  with  Mark  ii.  4 ;  Acts  ix.  33,  34) — to  have  actually 
waited  at  the  edge  of  that  pool  for  all  this  time.  Others  re- 
gard these  as  the  years  of  his  life.  Neither  interpretation  is 
correct.  The  '  thirty  and  eight '  express  the  duration  not 
of  his  life,  but  of  his  infirmity;  yet  without  imj)lying  that 
he  had  waited  for  health  from  that  pool  during  all  that 
time ;  though  the  next  verse  informs  us  that  he  had  there 
waited  for  it  long.  '  When  Jesus  saw  him  lie,  and  hneiu 
that  he  had  been  now  a  long  time  in  that  case,  He  saith 
unto  him,  Wilt  thou  he  made  whole  ? '  A  superfluous  ques- 
tion, it  might  seem  ;  for  who.  would  not  '  he  made  ivhole,'  if 
he  might  ?  and  his  very  presence  at  the  place  of  healing 
attested  his  desire.  But  the  question  has  its  purpose. 
This  poor  man  probably  had  waited  so  long,  and  so  long 
waited  in  vain,  that  hope  was  dead  or  wellnigh  dead 
within  him,  and  the  question  is  asked  to  awaken  in  him 
anew  a  yearning  after  the  benefit,  which  the  Saviour,  pity- 
ing his  hopeless  case,  was  about  to  impart.  His  heart 
may  have  been  as  *  withered  '  as  his  limbs  through  his  long 
sufferings  and  the  long  neglects  of  his  fellow-men  ;  it  was 
something  to  learn  that  this  stranger  pitied  him,  was 
interested  in  his  case,  would  help  him  if  He  could.  So 
learning  to  believe  in  his  love,  he  was  being  prepared  to 
believe  also  in  his  might.  Our  Lord  assisted  him  now  to 
the  faith,  which  He  was  about  presently  to  demand  of  him. 
The  answer,  *  8ir,  I  have  no  man,  when  the  water  is 
troid)led,  to  put  me  into  the  jpooi,'  contains  no  direct  reply, 
but  an  explanation  why  he  had  continued  so  long  in  his 
infirmity.  The  virtues  of  the  water  disappeared  so  fast, 
they  were  so  pre-oceupied,  whether  from  the  naiTOwness 
of  the  spot,  or  from  some  cause  which  we  know  not,  by 
the  first  comer,  that  he,  himself  helpless,  and  with  no  man 

years  of  Israel's  punishment  in  the  wilderness,  have  not  unnaturally  led 
many,  old  and  new  (see  Ilengsteuberg,  Christol.  toI.  ii,  p.  568),  to  find 
in  this  man  a  type  of  Israel  after  the  flesh. 

18 


26  S  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

to  aid,  could  never  be  this  first,  always  therefore  missed 
the  blessing ;  *  wldle  I  am  coming,  another  steppeth  down  he- 
fore  me.'  '  The  poor  man  still  was  prevented  by  some 
other,'  as  Jeremy  Taylor  writes,  showing  us  the  word 
'  prevent '  in  its  actual  transition  from  the  old  meaning  to 
the  new,  and  explaining  to  us  the  steps  of  this  transition. 
But  the  long  and  weary  years  of  baffled  expectation  are 
now  to  find  an  end  :  *  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Rise,  take  up  thy 
bed,  and  walk.'  This  taking  up  the  bed  shall  serve  as  a 
testimony  to  all  of  the  completeness  of  the  cure  (cf.  Matt, 
ix.  6;  Acts  ix.  34).  The  man  believed  that  word  to  be 
accompanied  with  power ;  made  proof,  and  found  that  it 
was  so  :  *  immediately  the  man  was  made  whole,  and  took  up 
his  bed,  and  walked.  And  on  the  same  day  was  the  Sabbath  ' 
— a  significant  addition,  explaining  all  which  follows. 

*  The  Jews  therefore  said  unto  him  that  was  cured.  It  is  the 
Sabbath  ;  it  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to  carry  thy  bed.'  By  ^the 
Jews '  we  understand  here,  as  constantly  in  St.  John,  not 
the  multitude,  but  the  Sanhedrists,  the  spiritual  heads  of 
the  nation  (i.  19;  vii.  i  ;  ix.  22  ;  xviii.  12,  14;  cf.  ver.  3; 
XX.  19).  These  find  fault  with  the  man,  for  had  not  Moses 
said,  '  In  it  thou  shalt  not  do  any  work '  (Exod.  xx.  10), 
and  still  more  to  the  point  Jeremiah,  '  Take  heed  to  your- 
selves, and  bear  no  burden  on  the  Sabbath  days '  (xvii. 
21);  so  that  they  seemed  to  have  words  of  Scripture  to 
justify  their  interference  and  the  offence  which  they  took. 
But  the  man's  bearing  of  his  bed  was  not  a  work  by  itself; 
it  was  merely  the  corollary,  or  indeed  the  concluding  act, 
of  his  healing,  that  by  which  he  should  make  proof  him- 
self, and  give  testimony  to  others,  of  its  reality.  It  was 
lawful  to  heal  on  the  Sabbath  day  ;  it  was  lawful  then  to 
do  whatever  was  immediately  involved  in,  and  directly 
followed  on,  the  healing.  And  here  lay  ultimately  the  true 
controversy  between  Christ  and  his  adversaries,  namely, 
whether  it  was  more  lawful  to  do  good  on  that  day,  or 
to  leave  it  undone  (Luke  vi.  9).     Starting  from  the  unlaw- 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETHESDA.  269 

fulness  of  leaving  good  undone,  He  asserted  that  He  was 
its  true  keeper,  keeping  it  as  God  kept  it,  with  the  highest 
beneficent  activity,  which  in  his  Father's  case,  as  in  his 
own,  was  identical  with  deepest  rest, — and  not,  as  they 
accused  Him  of  being,  its  breaker.  It  was  because  He 
had  Himself  ' ^onQ  those  things'  (see  ver.  16),  that  the 
Jews  persecuted  Him,  and  not  for  bidding  the  man  to  bear 
his  bed,  which  was  a  mere  accident  involved  in  his  own 
preceding  act.^  This,  however,  first  attracted  their  notice. 
Already  the  pharisaical  Jews,  starting  from  passages  such 
as  Exod.  xxiii.  12;  xxxi.  13-17;  xxxv.  2,  3;  Num.  xv. 
32-36 ;  Nehem.  xiii.  15-22,  had  laid  down  such  a  multi- 
tude of  prohibitions,  and  drawn  so  infinite  a  number  of 
hair-splitting  distinctions  (as  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
see,  Luke  xiii.  15,  16),  that  a  plain  and  unlearned  man 
could  hardly  know  what  was  forbidden,  and  what  was 
permitted.  This  poor  man  did  not  concern  himself  with 
these  subtle  casuistries  of  theirs.  It  was  enouofh  for  him 
that  One  with  power  to  make  him  whole.  One  who  had 
shown  compassion  to  him,  bade  him  to  do  what  he  was 
doing  :  '  He  answered  them,  He  that  made  me  whole,  the  same 
said  unto  me,  TaTce  up  thy  bed,  and  walk  '  ^ — surely  the  very 
model  of  an  answer,  when  the  world  finds  fault  and  is 
scandalized  with  what  a  Christian  is  doing,  contrary  to 
its  traditions,  and  to  the  rules  which  it  has  laid  down  ! 

After  this  greater  offender  they  inquire  now,  as  being 
the  juster  object  of  censure  and  of  punishment :  '  Then 
ashed  they  him.  What  man  is  that  which  said  unto  thee,  TaTce 
up  thy  bed,  and  walk  ? '  The  malignity  of  the  questioners 
reveals  itself  in  the  very  shape  which  their  question  as- 
sumes. They  do  not  take  up  the  poor  man's  words  on 
their  more  favourable  side,  which  would  also  have  been  the 

*  Calviu  :  Non  suum  modo  factum  excusat,  sed  ejus  etiam  qui  grabba- 
tum  suum  tulit.  Erat  enim  appendix  et  quasi  pars  miraculi,  quia  nihil 
quam  ejus  approbatio  erat. 

*  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh,  tract,  xvii.):  Non  acciperem  jus.sionem  a  quo 
receperam  sanitatem  ? 


270  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

more  natural ;  nor  ask,  '  Wliat  man  is  that  whicli  made 
thee  whole  ?'  But,  probably,  themselves  knowing  perfectly 
■well,  or  at  least  guessing,  -who  his  Healer  was,  they  insi- 
nuate by  the  form  of  their  question  that  He  could  not  be 
from  God,  who  gave  a  command  which  they,  the  interpre- 
ters of  God's  law,  esteemed  so  grievous  an  outrage  against 
it.^  So  will  they  weaken  and  undermine  any  influence 
which  Christ  may  have  obtained  over  this  simple  maii — an 
influence  already  manifest  in  his  finding  the  Loi'd's  autho- 
rity sufficient  to  justify  him  in  the  transgression  of  their 
commandment. 

But  the  man  could  not  point  out  his  benefactor ;  '  he  that 
was  healed  wist  not  who  it  was  ;  for  Jesus  had  conveyed  Him- 
self away^  a  multitude  heing  in  that  'place ' — not,  as  Grotius 
will  have  it,  to  avoid  ostentation  and  the  applauses  of  the 
people  ;  but  this  mention  of  the  multitude  shall  exjjlain  the 
facility  with  which  He  withdrew :  He  mingled  with  and 
passed  through  the  crowd,  and  so  was  lost  from  sight  in 
an  instant.  Were  it  not  that  the  common  people  usually 
were  on  his  side  on  occasions  like  the  present,  one  might 
imagine  that  a  menacing  crowd  under  the  influence  of 
these  chiefs  of  the  Jews  had  gathered  together,  while  this 
conversation  was  going  forward  betwixt  them  and  the 
healed  cripple,  from  whose  violence  the  Lord,  for  his  hour 
was  not  yet  come,  withdrew  Himself  awhile. 

*  Grotius :  En  malitioe  iugenium !  non  dicunt,  Qiiis  est  qui  te  sanavit  ? 
sed,  Quis  jussit  grabatum  tollere  ?  Quserunt  non  quod  mirentur,  sed 
quod  calumnientur. 

'■*  'VXi-invntv.  The  word  does  not  occur  again  in  the  New  Testament, 
but  four  times  in  the  Septuagiut  (Judg.  iv.  i8  ;  xviii.  26  ;  2  Kin.  ii.  24; 
xxiii.  16  ;  cf.  Plutarch,  De  Gen.  Soc.  4).  The  connexion  with  )fu»,  j'hVo/i  n, 
to  swim,  is  too  remote  to  justify  Beza  in  urging  this  image  here,  as  he  does: 
Proprie  dicitur  de  iis  qui  ex  undis  enatant,  fortassis  quod  qui  clam  nititur 
ex  turba  elabi,  corpus  non  aliter  summittat,  quam  qui  ex  undis  emergat. 
It  is  simply,  glided  out,  evasit  (not  evaserat,  '  had  conveyed  himself 
away'),  declinavit  (Vulg.),  with  a  connotation  originally  in  the  word  of 
that  sideward  movement  which  one  who  desires  to  make  his  way  rapidly 
through  a  crowd,  and  therefore  to  find  the  least  possible  resistance,  will 
often  employ. 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BE  THE  SD  A.  271 

^ Afterwards  Jesus Jindeth  him  in  the  temple'  (cf.  ix.  35). 
We  may  accept  it  as  a  token  for  good  that  Jesus  found 
liim  tliere  rather  than  in  any  other  place ;  returning 
thanks,  as  we  may  well  believe,  for  the  signal  mercies  so 
lately  vouchsafed  to  him  (cf.  Isai.  xxxviii.  22 ;  Acts  iii.  8  ; 
Luke  xvii.  15).  And  He,  who  sought  ever  to  connect  with 
the  healing  of  the  body  the  better  healing  of  the  soul, 
suffers  not  this  matter  to  conclude  thus ;  but  by  a  word  of 
solemn  warning,  declares  to  the  sufferer  that  all  his  past 
life  lay  open  and  manifest  before  Him ;  interprets  to  him 
the  past  judgment,  bids  him  not  provoke  future  and  more 
terrible  :  *  Behold,  thou  art  made  whole  :  sin  no  more,  lest  a 
worse  thing  come  unto  thee ' — words  which  give  us  an  awful 
glimpse  of  the  severity  of  God's  judgments  even  in  this 
present  time ;  for  we  must  not  restrict,  as  some  have  done, 
this  ^ worse  thing'  to  judgment  in  hell; — *a  worse  thing' 
even  in  this  life  might  befall  him  than  those  eight  and 
thirty  years  of  infii-mity  and  pain.  His  sickness  had  found 
him  a  youth,  and  left  him  an  old  man  ;  it  had  withered  up 
all  his  manhood,  and  yet  '  a  worse  thing '  even  than  this 
is  threatened  him,  should  he  sin  again.*  Let  no  man, 
however  miserable,  count  that  he  has  exhausted  the  power 
of  God's  wrath.  The  arrows  that  have  pierced  him  may 
have  been  keen ;  but  there  are  keener  yet,  if  only  he  pro- 
voke them,  in  the  quiver  from  which  these  were  drawn. 

What  the  past  sin  of  this  sufferer  had  been  we  do  not 
know,  but  the  man  himself  knew  very  well;  his  conscience 
was  the  interpreter  of  the  warning.  This  much,  however, 
is  plain  to  us  ;  that  Christ  did  connect  the  man's  suffering 
with  his  own  particular  sin;  for,  however  He  rebuked 
elsewhere  men's  uncharitable  way  of  tracing  such  a  con- 

^  Calvin :  Si  nihil  ferulis  proficiat  erga  nos  Deus,  quibus  leniter  nos 
tanqiiam  teneros  ac  delicatog  filios  humanissimiis  pater  castif^at,  novam 
personam  et  quasi  alienam  induere  cogitur.  Flagella  ergo  ad  domandum 
nostrani  ferociam  accipit.  Quare  non  mirum  est  si  atrocioribus  pcenis 
quasi  malleis  conterat  Deus,  quibus  mediocris  poena  nihil  prodest :  frangi 
enim  sequum  est,  qui  corrigi  non  sustinent. 


272  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

nexion,  and  tliat  unrigliteous  Theodicee,  wliicli  sliould 
in  every  case  affirm  a  man's  personal  suffering  to  "be  in 
proportion  to  liis  personal  guilt  (Luke  xiii.  2,  3  ;  Jolm  ix. 
3) ;  yet  He  never  meant  thereby  to  deny  that  if  much  of 
judgment  is  deferred,  much  also  is  even  now  proceeding. 
However  unwilling  we  may  be  to  receive  this,  bringing  as 
it  does  God  so  near,  and  making  retribution  so  real  and 
so  prompt  a  thing,  yet  is  it  true  notwithstanding.  As 
some  eagle,  pierced  with  a  shaft  feathered  from  its  own 
wing,  so  many  a  suJBferer,  even  in  this  present  time,  sees 
and  is  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  his  own  sin  fledged 
the  arrow,  which  has  pierced  him  and  brought  him  down. 
And  lest  he  should  miss  the  connexion,  oftentimes  he  is 
punished,  it  may  be  is  himself  sinned  against  by  his 
fellow-man,  in  the  very  kind  wherein  he  himself  has 
sinned  against  others  (Judg.  i.  6,  7  ;  Gen.  xlii.  21  ;  Jer. 
li.  49;  Eev.  xvi.  6).  The  deceiver  is  deceived,  as  was 
Jacob  (Gen.  xxvii.  19,  24 ;  xxix.  23  ;  xxxi.  7  ;  xxxvii.  32); 
the  violator  of  the  sanctities  of  family  life  is  himself 
wounded  and  outraged  in  his  tenderest  and  dearest  re- 
lations, as  was  David  (2  Sam.  xi.  4;  xiii.  14;  xvi.  22). 
And  many  a  sinner,  who  cannot  thus  read  his  own  doom, 
for  it  is  a  final  and  a  fatal  one,  yet  declares  in  that  doom 
to  others  that  there  is  indeed  a  coming  back  upon  men  of 
their  sins.  The  grandson  of  Ahab  is  himself  treacherously 
slain  in  the  portion  of  Naboth  the  Jezreelite  (2  Kin.  ix.  23) ; 
William  Eufus  perishes,  himself  the  third  of  his  family 
who  does  so,  in  the  New  Forest,  the  scene  of  the  sacrilege 
and  the  crimes  of  his  race.^ 

'  The  man  departed,  and  told  the  Jews  that  it  was  Jesus, 
which  had  made  him  whole.'     Whom  he  did  not  recognize 

^  Tragedy  in  its  highest  form  continually  occupies  itself  with  this 
truth — nowhere,  perhaps,  so  grandly  as  in  the  awful  reproduction  in  the 
ChoephorcB  of  the  scene  in  the  Agamemnon  in  which  Clytemnestra  stood 
over  the  prostrate  bodies  of  Agamemnon  and  Cassandra— a  reproduction 
with  only  the  difference  that  now  it  is  she  and  her  paramour  who  are  the 
skin,  and  her  own  son  who  stands  over  her. 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETIIESDA.  273 

in  the  crowd,  lie  has  recognized  in  the  temple.  This  is 
Augustine's  remark,  who  hereupon  finds  occasion  to  com- 
mend that  inner  calm  and  solitude  of  spirit  in  which  alone 
we  shall  recognize  the  Lord.*  Yet  while  such  remarks 
have  their  own  worth,  they  are  scarcely  applicable  here. 
The  man  probably  learned  from  the  bystanders  the  name 
of  his  deliverer,  and  went  and  told  it, — assuredly  not,  as 
some  assume,  in  treachery,  or  to  augment  the  envy  already 
existing  against  Him, — but  gratefully  proclaiming  aloud 
and  to  the  rulers  of  his  nation  the  physician  who  had 
healed  him.^  He  may  have  counted,  in  the  simplicity  of 
his  heart,  that  the  name  of  Him,  whose  reputation,  though 
not  his  person,  he  had  already  known,  whom  so  many 
counted  as  a  prophet,  or  even  as  the  Messiah  Himself,  would 
be  sufiicient  to  sto^)  the  mouths  of  the  gainsayers.  Had 
he  wrought  in  a  baser  spirit,  he  would  not,  as  Chrysostom 
ingeniously  observes,  have  gone  and  told  them  '  that  it  was 
Jesus,  which  had  made  him  ivhole,^  but  rather  that  it  was 
Jesus,  who  had  bidden  him  to  carry  his  bed.  Moreover, 
we  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  Lord,  who  knew  what  was 
in  man,  would  not  have  wasted  his  benefits  on  so  mean  and 
thankless  a  wretch  as  this  man  woiild  have  thus  shown 
himself  to  be. 

His  word  did  not  allay  their  displeasure,  only  provoked 
it  the  more.  '  And  therefore  did  the  Jews  persecute  Jesus, 
and  sought  to  slay  Him,  hecause  He  had  done  these  things  on 
the  Sabhath  day.'  Christ  had  in  their  eyes  wilfully  vio- 
lated the  Sabbath,  and  the  penalty  of  this  wilful  violation 
was  death  (Num.  xv.  32-36).  But  there  Avas  no  such  vio- 
lation here ;  and  He,  returning  good  for  evil,  will  fain  raise 
them  to  the  true  point  of  view  from  which  to  contemplate 

^  In  Uv.  Joh.  tract,  xvii. :  Difficile  est  in  turba  videro  Christum. 
Turba  strepitum  liabet;  visio  ista  secretum  desiderat.  In  turba  non 
eura  vidit,  iu  templo  vidit. 

*  Calvin :  Jsihil  minus  in  animo  habuit  quam  conflare  Christo 
invidiam  ;  nihil  enim  minus  speravit  quam  ut  tantopere  furerent  adversu? 
Christum.  Pius  ergo  affectus  fuit,  quum  vellet  justo  ac  debito  hcnor"? 
medicum  suum  prosequi. 


274  THE  HEALING    OF  THE 

the  Sabbath,  and  his  own  relation  to  it  as  the  Only-begotten 
of  the  Father.  He  is  no  more  a  breaker  of  the  Sabbath 
than  his  Father  is,  when  He  upholds  with  an  energy  that 
knows  no  pause  the  work  of  hie  creation  from  hour  to 
hour  and  from  moment  to  moment :  *  My  Father  vjorketh 
hitherto,  and  I  worJc ; '  Christ's  work  is  but  the  reflex  of 
his  Father's  work.  Abstinence  from  an  outward  work  is 
not  essential  to  the  observance  of  a  Sabbath ;  it  is  only 
more  or  less  the  necessary  condition  of  this  for  beings  so 
framed  and  constituted  as  ever  to  be  in  danger  of  losing 
the  true  collection  and  rest  of  the  spirit  in  the  multiplicity 
of  earthly  toil  and  business.  Man  indeed  mast  cease  from 
his  work,  if  a  higher  work  is  to  find  place  in  him.  He 
scatters  himself  in  his  work,  and  therefore  must  collect 
himself  anew,  and  have  seasons  for  so  doing.  But  wuth 
Him  who  is  one  with  the  Father  it  is  otherwise.  In  Him 
the  deepest  rest  is  not  excluded  by  the  highest  activity; 
nay  rather,  in  God,  in  the  Son  as  in  the  Father,  they  are 
one  and  the  same.^ 

But  so  to  defend  what  He  has  done  only  exasperates  his 
adversaries  the  more.  They  have  here  not  a  Sabbath- 
breaker  merely,  but  a  blasphemer  as  well ;  for,  however 
others  in  later  times  may  have  interpreted  his  words,  they 
who  first  heard  them  interpreted  them  correctly ; '  that 
the  Lord  was  here  putting  Himself  on  an  equality  with 
God,  claiming  divine  attributes  for  Himself:  '  TJierefore 
the  Jews  sought  the  more  to  hill  Him,  because  He  had  not 
only  hrolcen  the  Sabbath,    but  said  also   that   God  was  his 

^  Thus  Augustine  on  the  eternal  Sabbath-keeping  of  the  faithful 
(Ep.  Iv.  9) :  Inest  autem  in  ilia  requie  non  desidiosa  segnitia,  sed 
qusedam  ineffabilis  tranquillitas  actionis  otiosse.  Sic  enim  ab  hiijus 
vitse  operibua  in  fine  requiescitur,  ut  in  alterius  vitre  actione  gaudeatur. 
Cf.  Philo,  Leff.  Alleg.  i.  §  3,  a  grand  passage,  commencing  thus  :  Uavtrai 
•yap  ovdknort  rroiwv  6  Qioc,  (iW'  wantp  ihov  to  k(hhv  Trvpbc,  Kai  xiovog  to 
l//uvf7i',  o'vTU)  Kal  Qtov  to  nottti''  kcu  ttoXv  ys  fiaWoi;  o(T(^  /c«i  Tv7g  dWoig 
iiTzamv  apxi)  tov  Spav  tnTiv. 

*  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xvii.)  :  Ecce  intelligunt  Judasi,  quod 
non  intelligunt  Ariani. 


I M  POT  PINT  MAN  AT  BE  THE  SD  A.  275 

Father,  niahiny  Himself  equal  with  God'  (Lev.  xxiv.  16; 
John  viii.  58,  59;  xix.  7).  Strange,  if  the  Unitarian 
scheme  of  doctrine  is  true,  that  He  should  have  suffered 
them  to  continue  in  their  error,  that  He  should  not  at 
once  have  taken  this  stumbling-block  out  of  their  way, 
and  explained  to  them  that  indeed  He  meant  nothing  so 
dreadful  as  the}^  supposed  !  But  so  far  from  this,  He  only 
reasserts  what  has  offended  them  so  deeply,  in  a  discourse 
than  which  there  is  none  more  important  in  Holy  Scripture 
for  the  fast  fixing  of  the  doctrine  concerning  the  relations  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son.  Other  passages  may  contain  as  im- 
portant witness  against  the  Arian,  other  against  the  Sabel- 
lian,  departure  from  the  truth ;  but  this  ujoon  both  sides 
plants  the  pillars  of  the  faith.  It  would  lead,  however,  too 
far  from  the  purpose  of  this  volume  to  enter  on  it  here. 

I  conclude  with  a  brief  reference  to  a  matter  in  part 
anticipated  already,  namely,  the  types  and  prophetic 
symbols  which  have  been  often  traced  in  this  history. 
Many,  as  has  been  already  noticed,  found  in  these  healing 
influences  of  the  pool  of  Bethesda  a  foreshowing  of  future 
benefits,  above  all,  of  the  benefit  of  baptism  ;  and,  through 
familiarity  with  a  miracle  of  a  lower  order,  a  helping  of 
men's  faith  to  a  receiving  of  the  mystery  of  a  yet  higher 
healing  which  should  be  linked  with  water.'  They  were 
well  pleased  also  to  magnify  the  largeness  and  freedom  of 
the  later  grace,  by  comparing  it  with  the  narrower  and 
more  stinted  blessings  of  the  former  dispensation.^  The 
pool  with  its  one  healed,  and  that  one  at  distant  intervals, 
— once  a  year  Theophylact   and   most   others   assumed, 

^  So  especially  Chrysostom  (in  loc). 

^  Tertullian  (Adv.  Jttd.  13)  adduces  as  one  of  the  signs  that  even  these 
scanty  blessings  did  with  the  Jewish  rejection  of  Christ  cease  altogether, 
that  from  that  day  forth,  this  pool  forfeited  its  healinj^  powers :  Lex  et 
Prophetffi  usque  ad  Joannem  fuerunt ;  et  piscina  Bethsai'da  usque  ad 
adventum  Christi,  curando  invaletudineo  ab  Israel,  desiit  a  beneficiis 
deinde  cum  ex  perseverantiii  furoris  sui  nomen  Domini  per  ipsos  blasphe- 
maretur. 


l-jt  THE  HEALING   OF  THE 

althougli  nothing  of  tlie  kind  is  said,  and  the  word  of  the 
original  may  mean  oftener  or  seldomer, — -was  the  type  of 
the  weaker  and  more  restrained  graces  of  the  Old  Cove- 
nant ;  when  not  as  yet  was  there  room  for  all,  nor  a 
fountain  oj)ened,  and  at  all  times  accessible,  for  the  heal- 
ing of  the  spiritual  sicknesses  of  the  whole  race  of  men, 
but  only  of  a  single  people.^ 

Thus  Chrysostom,  in  a  magnificent  Easter  sermon  "^  (it 
will  be  remembered  that  at  that  season  multitudes  of  neo- 
phytes were  baptized) :  '  Among  the  Jews  also  there  was 
of  old  a  pool  of  water.  Yet  learn  whereunto  it  availed, 
that  thou  mayest  accurately  measure  the  Jewish  poverty 
and  our  riches.  There  went  down,  it  is  said,  an  Angel 
and  moved  the  waters,  and  who  first  descended  into  them 
after  the  moving,  obtained  a  cure.  The  Lord  of  Angels 
went  down  into  the  stream  of  Jordan,  and  sanctifying  the 
nature  of  water,  healed  the  whole  world.  So  that  there, 
indeed,  he  who  descended  after  the  first  was  not  healed ; 
for  to  the  Jews,  infirm  and  carnal,  this  grace  was  given  : 
but  here  after  the  first  a  second  descends,  after  the  second 
a  third  and  a  fourth  ;  and  were  it  a  thousand,  didst  thou 
cast  the  whole  world  into  these  spiritual  fountains,  the 
grace  would  not  be  worn  out,  the  gift  expended,  the  foun- 
tains defiled,  the  liberality  exhausted.'  And  Augustine, 
ever  on  the  watch  to  bring  out  his  great  truth  that  the 
Law  was  for  the  revealing  of  sin,  and  could  not  efiect  its 
removal,  for  making  men  to  know  their  sickness,  not  for 
the  healing  of  that  sickness,  to  drag  them  out  of  the 
lurking-places  of  an  imagined  righteousness,  not  to  pro- 
vide them  of  itself  with  any  surer  refuge,  finds  a  tjpe,  or 
at  least  an  apt  illustration  of  this,  in  those  ^jive  jporches,^ 
>vhich  sJioiced  their  sick,  but  cculd  not  cure  them ;  in  which 

^  The  author  of  the  vork  attributed  to  Ambrose  (Z)e  Sacram.  ii,  2)  : 
Tunc  inc[uain  temporis  in  figuia  qui  prior  descendisset,  solus  curabatur. 
Quanto  major  est  gratia  Ecclesice,  in  C[ut\  omnes  salvantur,  q^uicunciue 
descendunt ! 

^  0pp.  vol.  iii.  p.  756,  Bened.  ed. 


IMPOTENT  MAN  AT  BETHESBA.  i-JI 

they  ^  Zay,  a  great  'multitude  of  impotent  folTc^  hlind,  Jialty 
xvitheredJ'  It  needed  that  the  waters  should  be  stirred, 
before  any  power  went  forth  for  their  cure.  This  motion 
of  the  pool  was  the  perturbation  of  the  Jewish  people  at 
the  coming  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Then  powers  were 
stirring  for  their  healing ;  and  he  who  '  ivent  down,'  he 
who  humbly  believed  in  his  Incarnation,  in  his  descent 
as  a  man  amongst  us,  who  was  not  oflended  itt  Lis 
lowly  estate,  was  healed  of  whatsoever  disease  he  had.^ 

*  Enarr.  i.  in  Ps.  Ixx.  1 5  :  Merito  lex  per  Moysen  data  est,  gratia  et 
Veritas  per  Jesum  Christum  facta  est.  Moyses  quiuque  libros  scripsit ; 
sed  in  quinque  porticibiis  piscinam  cingentibus  languidi  jacebant,  sed 
curari  non  poterant.  .  .  .  lUis  eniin  quinque  porticibus,  in  ligura  quin- 
que libroruni,  prodebantur  potius  quam  sanabantur  segroti.  .  .  .  Venit 
l)ominus,  turbata  est  aqua,  et  crucifixus  est,  descendat  ut  sanetur  regrotus. 
Quid  est,  desoendat  ?  Ilumiliet  se.  Ergo  quicumque  amatis  litteram 
sine  gi-atia,  in  porticibus  remanebitis,  segri  eritis ;  jacentes,  non  con- 
Talescentes :  de  littera  enim  prsesumitis.  Cf.  Enarr.  in  Ps,  Ixxxiii.  7 : 
Qui  non  sanabatur  Lege,  id  est  porticibus,  sanatur  gratia,  per  passionis 
fideni  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi.  Serm.  cxxv. :  Ad  hoc  data  est  lex, 
qufB  proderet  aegrotos,  non  quae  tolleret.  Ideo  ergo  aegroti  illi  qui  in 
domibus  suis  secretins  aegrotare  possent,  si  illae  quinque  porticus  non 
essent,  prodebantur  oculis  omnium  in  illis  porticibus,  sed  a  porticibus 
non  sanabantur.  .  .  .  Intendite  ergo.  Erant  illas  porticus  legem  signifi- 
cantes,  portantes  aegrotos  non  sanactes,  prodentes  noa  curantes.  Cf.  In 
Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xyii. 


}(.  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEDING  OF  FIVE  THOUSAND. 

^NJatx.  xiv.  15-21;  Mark  vi.  34-44;  Luke  ix.  12-17;  Jonx  vi.  5-14. 

THIS  miracle,  with  the  walking  on  the  sea,  which  may 
be  regarded  as  its  appendix,  is  the  only  one  which  St. 
John  has  in  common  with  the  other  Evangelists,  and  this  he 
has  in  common  with  them  all.  It  is  thus  the  only  one  of 
which  a  fourfold  record  exists.  It  will  be  my  endeavour 
to  keep  all  the  narratives  in  view,  as  they  mutually  com- 
plete one  another.  St.  Matthew  connects  the  Lord's  re- 
tirement to  the  desei't  place  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake,^ 
with  the  murder  of  John  the  Baptist;'^  St.  Mark  and  St. 
Luke  place  the  two  events  in  juxtaposition,  but  without 
making  one  the  motive  of  the  other.  From  St.  Mark, 
indeed,  it  might  appear  as  if  the  immediate  motive  was 
another,  namely,  that  the  Apostles,  who  were  just  returned 

•  Stanley,  Sinai  (mil  Palestine,  p.  371:  'The  eastern  shores  of  the 
lake  have  been  so  slightly  visited  and  described,  that  any  comparison 
of  their  features  with  the  history  must  necessarily  be  precarious.  Yet 
one  general  characteristic  of  that  shore,  as  compared  with  the  western 
side,  has  been  indicated,  which  was  probably  the  case  in  ancient  times, 
though  in  a  less  degree  than  at  present,  namely,  its  desert  chaiacter. 
Partly  this  arises  from  its  nearer  exposure  to  the  Bedouin  tribes ;  partly 
from  its  less  abundance  of  springs  and  streams.  There  is  no  recess  in 
the  eastern  hills,  no  towns  along  its  banks  corresponding  to  those  in  the 
Plain  of  Gennesareth.  Thus  the  wilder  region  became  a  natural  refuge 
from  the  active  lite  of  the  western  shores.  It  was  "when  lie  saw  great 
multitudes  about  Ilim  "  that "  lie  gave  commandment  to  depart  unto  the 
other  side;"  and  again  lie  said,  "  Come  ye  yourselves  apart  into  a  desert 
place,  and  rest  awhile  ;  for  there  were  many  coming  and  going,  and  they 
had  no  leisure  so  much  as  to  eat."' 

^  Ludolphus:  Ut  parceret  iuimicis  ne  homicidium  Domini  jungerent 
homicidio  Johaimis.  , 


FEEDING   OF  FIVE   THOUSAND.  279 

from  their  mission,  might  have  time  at  once  for  bodily  and 
spiritual  refreshment,  might  not  be  always  m  a  crowd, 
always  ministering  to  others,  never  to  themselves.  But 
thither,  ^into  a  desert  place  helonging  to  the  city  called 
Bethsaida,' '  the  multitude  followed  Him  ;  not  necessarily 
proceeding  *  afoot,'  for  Tre^rj  (Mark  vi.  33)  need  not,  and 
here  does  not,  imply  this  ;  ^  but  *  hy  land,'  as  distinguished 
from  Him  and  his  company,  who  made  the  passage  hy  sea. 
They  lost  so  little  time  on  their  journey,  that  although 
their  way  was  much  longer  about  than  his,  who  had  only  to 
cross  the  lake,  they  '  outwent '  Him,  anticipated  his  com- 
ing, so  that  when  He  '  went  forth,'  not,  that  is,  from  the 
ship,  but  from  his  solitude,  and  for  the  purpose  of  gra- 
ciously receiving  those  who  had  followed  Him  w^ith  such 
devotion,'  He  ^ saw  much  people'  waiting  for  Him.  This 
their  presence  entirely  defeated  the  very  intention  for 
which  He  had  sought  that  solitude ;  yet  not  the  less  He 
*  received  them,  and  spake  unto  them  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  healed  them  that  had  need  of  healing.'  St.  John's  ap- 
parently casual  notice  of  the  fact  that  '  the  passover  a  feast 
of  the  Jews  was  nigh,'  is  introduced,  some  say,  to  explain 
from  whence  this  great  multitude,  that  followed  Jesus, 
came ;  that  they  were  on  their  road  to  Jerusalem,  there  to 
keep  the  feast.     But  what  should  they  have  done  in  that 

^  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  374 :  '  "  Bethsaida"  is  the  eastern  city 
of  that  name,  which,  from  the  importance  of  the  new  city  Julias,  built 
there  by  Philip  t!ie  Tetrarch  [see  Joseplms,  B.  J.  iii,  9.  i ;  Antiq.  xviii. 
2.  I ;  and  cf.  Pliny,  H.  N.  v.  15],  would  give  its  name  to  the  surrounding 
desert  tract.  The  ^^ desert  place"  was  either  one  of  the  green  tablelands 
visible  from  the  hills  on  the  western  side,  or  more  probably  part  of  the 
rich  plain  at  the  mouth  of  the  Jordan.  In  the  parts  of  this  plain  not 
cultivated  by  the  hand  of  man  would  be  found  the  "7?jmcA  yreen  c/rass," 
still  fresh  in  the  spring  of  the  year  when  this  event  occurred,  before  it  had 
faded  away  in  the  summer  sun, — the  tall  grass,  which,  broken  down  by 
the  feet  of  the  thousands  there  gathered  together,  would  make  as  it  were 
"couches"  (icXiai,!,)  for  them  to  recline  upon.'  This  Bethsaida  must  be 
carefully  distinguished  from  'Bethsaida  of  Gtdilee,''  the  city  of  Peter, 
Andrew,  and  Philip  (Matt.  xi.  21  ;  John  i.  44;  xii.  21). 

*  Herodotus,  \ii.  110;  Plato,  Menex.  236  e. 

*  Ludolphua:  31iaores  sequebantur,  sed  majore.:!  per-req^tiebautur. 


28o  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEIKLXG' 

remote  region,  so  far  out  of  tlie  way  of  all  the  usual  lines 
of  communication  ?  St.  John  moreover  distinctly  accounts 
in  another  way  for  their  presence.  They  were  there,  '  be- 
cause they  saw  his  miracles  which  He  did  on  them  that 
were  diseased.'  The  notice  of  the  passover  here,  if  it  is  to 
find  an  explanation,  and  is  anything  more  than  the  fixing 
of  a  point  in  the  chronology  of  our  Lord's  ministry,  must 
be  otherwise  explained.^ 

The  way  is  prepared  for  the  miracle  in  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent manner  by  the  three  earlier  Evangelists,  and  by 
St.  John.  According  to  them,  '  When  it  luas  evening  his 
disciples  came  to  Him,  saying,  This  is  a  desert  place,  and  the 
time  is  now  past ;  send  the  multitude  away,  that  they  may 
go  into  the  villages  and  buy  themselves  meat.*  The  first 
suggestion  comes  here  from  the  disciples ;  while  in  St. 
John  it  is  the  Lord  Himself  who,  in  his  question  to 
Philip,  '  Whence  shall  we  buy  bread  that  these  may  eat  ?  ' 
(vi.  5)  first  contemplates  the  difficulty.  This  difference, 
however,  is  capable  of  an  easy  explanation.  Our  Lord' 
may  have  put  this  question  to  Philip  at  a  somewhat 
earlier  period  of  the  afternoon ;  then  left  the  difficulty 
which  He  had  suggested  to  work  in  the  minds  of  the 
Apostles ;  bringing  them,  as  was  so  often  his  manner,  to 
see  that  there  was  no  help  in  the  common  course  of  things; 
and  when  they  had  acknowledged  this,  then,  and  not  be- 
fore, stepping  in  with  his  higher  aid.^ 

^  A.  Godet  has  suggested  a  very  beautiful  explanation  of  the  mention 
here  of  the  passover :  La  mention  de  la  grande  fete  qui  approchait  est 
done  en  relation,  non  avec  I'arrivee  des  troupes,  mais  avec  I'acte  de  Jesus. 
J^sus  est  dans  la  position  d'un  prosorit.  II  ne  pent  aller  c^lebrer  la 
Paque  a  Jerusalem,  En  voyant  accourir  a  lui  au  dtSsert  cette  multitude 
affam^e  du  pain  de  vie,  il  est  profondement  (5mu ;  il  reeonnait  dans  cette 
circonstance  inattendue  un  signal  qui  lui  est  donn^  par  le  Pere.  II 
pense  aux  foules  qui  dans  ce  moment  meme  se  pressent  a  Jerusalem 
pour  y  manger  I'agneau  pascal,  et  il  se  dit:  '  Et  moi  aussi  je  c<5I<5brerai 
une  Paque ! '  Cette  pensee  est  celle  qui  met  toute  la  scene  suivante  et  le 
discours  qui  s'y  rattache  dans  leur  veritable  jour.  Par  le  ver.  4  Jean  nous 
donne  la  clef  du  recit. 

'^  For  the  reconciliation  of  any  apparent  contradiction,  see  Augustine, 
De  Cons,  Eoany.  ii.  4.6. 


OF  FIVE  THOUSAND.  48 r 

St.  John,  ever  careful  to  avert  a  misconstruction  of  liis 
Lord's  words  (ii.  21 ;  xxi.  22),  above  all,  any  wliicli  might 
Beem  to  derogate  from  his  perfect  wisdom  or  love,  does 
not  fail  to  inform  us  that  He  asked  this  question,  not  as 
needing  any  counsel,  not  as  being  Himself  in  any  real 
embarrassment,  'for  He  Himself  knew  what  He  ivould  do,' 
but  *  tempting  him,'  as  Wiclif's  translation  has  it.  If  we 
admit  this  word,  we  must  yet  understand  it  in  its  milder 
sense,  as  indeed  our  Version  has  done  ;  which  has  given  it, 
*  to  prove  him  * '  (cf.  Gen.  xxii.  i).  It  was  '  to  prove  him,' 
and  what  measure  of  faith  he  had  in  that  Master  whom  he 
had  himself  already  acknowledged  the  Messiah,  '  Him  of 
whom  Moses  in  the  Law  and  the  prophets  did  write  * 
(John  i.  45).  It  should  now  be  seen  whether  Philip, 
calling  to  mind  the  great  things  which  Moses  had  done, 
who  gave  the  people  bread  from  heaven  in  the  wilderness, 
and  the  notable  miracle  which  Elisha,  though  on  a  smaller 
scale  than  that  which  now  was  needed,  had  performed 
(2  Kin.  iv.  43,  44),  could  so  lift  up  his  thoughts  as  to 
believe  that  He  whom  he  had  recognized  as  the  Christ, 
greater  therefore  than  Moses  or  the  prophets,  would  be 
equal  to  the  present  need.  Why  Philip  was  singled  out 
for  proof  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  whatever  the  motive, 
he  does  not  abide  that  proof.  Long  as  he  has  been  with 
Jesus,  he  has  not  yet  seen,  he  had  not  indeed  seen  at  a 
later  day,  the  Father  in  the  Son  (John  xiv.  9) ;  he  does 
not  understand  that  the  Lord  whom  he  serves  upon  earth 
is  even  the  same  on  whom  all  creatures  wait,  who  'openeth 
his  hand,  and  filleth  all  things  living  with  plenteousness, 
who  has  sustained  them  from  the  creation  of  the  world, 
and  who  therefore  can  feed  these  few  thousands  that  are 
this  day  more  particularly  dependent  on  his  bounty.  He 
can  conceive  of  no  other  suppKes  save  such  as  natural 

^  Tliipn^Mv  ahroi'.  Cf.  Augustine  (Z)e  Scrm.  Do7n.  in  Mon.  ii.  9); 
niud  factum  est,  ut  ipse  sibi  notus  fieret  qui  tentabatur,  suamque 
desperationem  condomnaret,  saturatis  turbis  de  pane  Doniiui,  qui  eas  non 
habere  quod  ederent  existimaverat. 


282  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEDING 

means  could  procure,  and  at  once  comes  to  tlie  point: 
'  Two  hundred  pennyworth  of  bread  is  not  sufficient  for  them, 
that  every  one  of  them  may  talce  a  little.*  The  sum  lie  names, 
about  some  seven  pounds  sterling,  was  much  larger — for  so 
much  he  would  imply — than  any  which  the  common  purse 
could  yield. 

Having  drawn  from  the  mouth  of  Philip  this  confession 
of  inability  to  meet  the  present  need.  He  left  it  to  work ; 
— till,  somewhat  later  in  the  day,  the  disciples  came  with 
their  proposal  that  He  should  dismiss  the  assemblage. 
But  bringing  now  the  matter  to  a  head,  He  replies,  '  they 
need  not  depart;  give  ye  them  to  eat.*  They  repeat  with  one 
mouth  what  Philip  had  before  afl&rmed,  how  far,  namely, 
the  outlay  was  beyond  their  means,  Shall  ive  go  and  buy 
two  hundred  pennyworth  of  bread,  and  give  them  to  eat  ? 
We  may  compare  the  remonstrance  which  on  a  some- 
what similar  occasion  Moses  had  made  :  '  Shall  the  flocks 
and  the  herds  be  slain  for  them,  to  suffice  them  ?  '  (Num. 
xi.  22  ;  cf.  Ps.  Ixxviii.  19,  20) ;  there  is  the  same  miti- 
gated infidelity  in  both ;  the  same  doubt  whether  the 
power  of  the  Lord  is  equal  to  that  which  his  word,  ex- 
pressly or  implicitly,  has  undertaken.  But  not  heeding 
this  He  proceeds,  *  How  many  loaves  have  ye  ?  go  and  see.* 
They  return  and  tell  Him  that  the  utmost  which  they 
have  at  command  is  five  loaves  and  two  fishes,^  the  little 
stock  which  a  single  lad  among  the  multitude  has  to 
sell ;  and  which  they  have  purchased,  or  may  purchase,  if 
they  will.'^ 

^  Instead  of  i\Ovec,  St.  John  has  6\papia,  both  here  and  xxi.  9.  The 
diminutive  of  6\f/ov  (from  i\pM,  to  prepare  by  fire),  it  properly  means  any 
Trpoi'.ayioj'  or  pulmeutum,  anything,  as  flesh,  salt,  olives,  butter,  &c., 
which  should  be  eaten  as  a  relish  with  bread.  But  by  degrees,  as 
Plutarch  {Symp.  iv.  4)  remarks,  6^uv  and  c^apwv  came  to  be  restricted 
with  a  narrower  use  to  fish  alone,  generally  salt  fish,  the  most  usual 
accompaniment  of  bread  (see  Suicer,  Thes.  s,  v.  6-^apiov;  the  Did.  of  Gr. 
and  Horn.  Antt.  s.  v.  Opsonium;  and  Becker,  Cluiriclcs,  vol.  i.  p.  4.36). 

'  Grotius :  Apud  alios  Evangelistas  dicuntur  habere  id  quod  in 
promptu  erat,  ut  emi  posset. 


OF  FIVE   THOUSAND.  283 

With  this  slender  stock  of  homeliest  fare,  for  St.  John 
informs  us  that  the  loaves  were  of  barley  (cf.  2  Kin.  vii. 
I;  Judg-.  vii.  13;  Ezek.  iv.  12),  the  Lord  undertakes  to 
satisfy  all  that  multitude  (Chrysostom  quotes  aptly  here 
Ps.  Ixxviii.  19  :  '  Shall  God  prepare  a  table  in  the  wilder- 
ness ?  ') ;  for  '  He  commanded  them  to  make  all  sit  doivn  hy 
comjtanies  on  the  green  grass,'  at  that  early  spring  season  a 
delightful  resting-place.'  '  So  the  men  ^  sat  down,  in  number 
ahont  five  thousand.'  The  mention  of  this  '^  green  grass,'  or 
'  much  grass,'  is  another  point  of  contact  between  St.  Mark 
and  St.  John.  The  former  adds  a  further  graphic  touch, 
how  they  sat  in  companies,  'by  hundreds  and  by  fifties,'  and 
how  these  separate  groups  showed  in  their  symmetrical 
arrangement  like  so  many  garden-plots.^  It  was  a  wise 
precaution.  The  vast  assemblage  was  thus  subdivided 
and  broken  up  into  manageable  j)ortions ;  there  was  less 
danger  of  tumult  and  coi^fusion,  or  that  the  weaker,  the 
women  and  the  children,  should  be  past  over,  whilQ  the 
stronger  and  ruder  unduly  put  themselves  forward ;  the 
Apostles  were  able  to  pass  easily  up  and  down  among  the 
groups,  and  to  minister  in  orderly  succession  to  the  neces- 
sities of  all. 

The  taking  of  the  bread  in  hand  was  a  formal  act  which 
went  before  the  blessing  or  giving  of  thanks  for  it  *  (Luke 

'  ....       prostrati  graniine  mollij 

Prpcsertim  cum  tenipestas  arridet,  et  anui 
Tempora  conspei'gunt  viiidantes  fioiibus  berbas. 
-  'Airpfc  (Johu  vi.  10),  not  di  Opwn-oi,  as  in  the  first  clause  of  the  verse; 
which  puts  this  in  exact  agreement  with  Matt.  xiv.  22  ;  see  Professor 
Blunt,  Duties  of  a  Parish  Priest,  p.  62. 
^  II|UrtTioi,  7rpf(fT(ai=:areolatim,  as  in  square  garden-plots.    Theophylact 

Upn^iai  yap  Xiyovrai  rd  iv  rule  ki'ittiuq  hd,opa  Ko^txaray  ii'  ini;  i^vrtvovra 
duKpnpa  TToXAoKig  Xaxava.  Some  derive  it  from  -r-fpnc,  these  patches  being 
commonly  on  the  edges  of  the  vineyard  or  garden;  otlicrs  from  irpaaDv, 
porrum,  the  onion  being  largely  grown  in  them.  Our  English  '  in  i-anks ' 
does  not  repioduce  the  picture  to  the  eye,  giving  rather  the  notion  of 
continuous  lines ;  "Wiclif's  '  by  jjoHies '  was  better.  Perhaps  '  in  groups  ' 
would  be  as  near  as  we  could  get  to  it  in  English. 

*  In  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark,  (vXoytini^ — in  St.  Luke,  iv\6yi)ntv  ai'Td-'t 
ec.  roi'i;  aprninj^ — in  St.  John,  Kai  ivx"pi'^Tiiaac,  which  word  on  occasion 

19 


284  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEDING 

xxiv.  30  ;  I  Cor.  xi.  23).  This  eucliaristic  act  Jesus  ac- 
complished as  the  head  of  the  household,  and  according 
to  that  beautiful  saying  of  the  Talmud,  '  He  that  enjoys 
aught  without  thanksgiving,  is  as  though  he  robbed  God.' 
Having  blessed,  He  '  hralce  and  gave  the  loaves  to  his  dis- 
ciples,  and  the  disciples  to  the  inultitude ; ' — the  marvel- 
lous multiplication  taking  place,  as  many  affirm,  first  in 
the  Saviour's  own  hands,  next  in  those  of  the  Apostles, 
and  lastly  in  the  hands  of  the  eaters.  This  may  have 
been  so ;  but  whether  thus  or  in  some  other  way, '  they  did 
all  eat,  and  were  filled' '  (Psal.  cxlv.  16).  Christ  was  herein 
fulfilling  for  the  multitude  his  own  promise,  '  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  his  righteousness  ;  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you'  (Matt.  vi.  33).  They  had 
come  taking  no  thought,  for  three  days  at  least,  of  what 
they  should  eat  or  what  they  should  drink,  only  desirous 
to  hear  the  word  of  life,  only  seeking  the  kingdom  of 
heaven ;  and  now  the  lower  things,  according  to  the  Avord 
of  the  promise,  were  added  unto  them. 

"With  this  miracle,  even  more  than  with  that  of  the  water 
changed  into  wine,  when  we  endeavour  to  realize  to  our- 
selves the  manner  of  the  miracle,  it  evermore  eludes  our 
grasj:),  and  baffles  imagination.  Nor  is  this  strange ;  for  in- 
deed, how  can  it  be  possible  to  bring  within  forms  of  our 
conception  any  act  of  creation,  any  becoming  ?  in  thought 
to   bridge  over  the   gulf  between  not-being   and   being, 

of  the  second  multiplyiiijr  of  the  bread  both  St.  Matthew  (xv.  36)  and  St. 
Mark  (viii.  6)  use,  though  the  latter  has  in  the  verse  following  ivXoyt'irraQ 
in  respect  of  the  tishes.  The  terms  are  sjaionymous :  cf.  Matt.  xxvi.  27, 
with  the  parallels,  i  Cor.  x.  16;  xi.  24;  and  see  Grotius  on  Matt,  xxvi. 
16.  Origen's  view  that  our  Lord  wi'ought  the  wonder  to]  Xo'yr.j  kuI  ry 
tvXoyii^',  tliat  this  moment  of  taking  the  loaves  into  his  hand  and  blessing, 
was  the  wonder-crisis,  is  sustained  by  the  fact  that  all  four  Evangelists 
bring  out  the  circumstance  of  the  blessing,  and  most  of  all  by  St.  Luke's 
vrords,  u';Ao'yi;Tfi'  niirtiiici  cf.  John  vi.  23. 

1  XiipTctZirrQai,  properly,  to  fodder  cattle,  was  transferred  by  writers  of 
the  later  Comedy  to  the  feed'uuj  of  men;  see  examples  in  Athenseus 
(Deipnos.  iii.  56),  where  one  justifies  liimself  for  using  ;ti)praafl/)i/ai  as 
zzziciininOi'ii'ai  (cf.  Stuvz,  De  Dial.  Maced.  pp.  200-202). 


OF  FIVE   THOUSAND.  285 

wliicli  yet  is  bridged  over  in  every  creative  act?  And 
tliis  being  so,  there  is  no  force  in  the  objection  wliicli  one 
has  made  against  the  historical  truth  of  this  narrative, 
namely,  that  '  there  is  no  attempt  by  closer  description  to 
make  clear  in  its  details  the  manner  and  process  by  which 
this  wonderful  bread  was  formed.  It  is  ti-ue  wisdom,  to 
leave  the  indescribable  nndescribed,  and  without  so  much 
as  an  attempt  at  the  description.^  They  who  bear  record 
of  these  things  ajipeal  to  the  same  faith,  on  the  part  of 
their  readers  or  hearers,  as  that  which  believes  '  that  the 
worlds  were  framed  hy  the  Word  of  God,  so  that  things 
which  are  seen,  were  not  made  of  things  which  do  appear  ' 
(Heb.  xi.  3). 

An  analogy,  and,  so  to  speak,  a  help  to  the  understand- 
ing of  this  miracle  has  been  found,  in  that  which  year  by 
year  is  accomplished  iii  the  field,  where  a  single  grain  of 
corn  multiplies  itself,  and  in  the  end  unfolds  in  numerous 
ears  ; — and,  with  this  analogy  in  view,  many  beautiful  re- 
marks have  been  made ;  as  this,  that  while  God's  every- 
day miracles  had  grown  cheap  in  men's  sight  by  continual 
repetition.  He  had  therefore  reserved  something,  not  more 
wonderful,  but  less  frequent,  to  arouse  men's  minds  to  a 
new  admiration.  Others  have  urged  that  here,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  water  made  wine,  Christ  did  but  compress  into 
a  single  moment  all  those  processes  which  in  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances He,  the  same  Lord  of  nature,  causes  more  slowly 
to  succeed  one  another.''     But.  true  as  in  its  measure  is 

^  Thus  Ililaiy  {De  Trin.  iii.  §  6)  :  Fallunt  momenta  visum,  duin 
pi  en  am  fragmentis  mauum  sequeris,  alteram  sine  damno  portionis  sua3 

contueris Non   sensus  non  visus  profectum  tarn  iucon.«picabi]is 

operationis  assequitur.  Est,  quod  non  erat ;  videtur  quod  non  intelli- 
gitur;  solum  superest  ut  Deus  omnia  posse  credatur.  Cf.  Ambrose, 
£.rp,  in  Lnc.  vi.  85. 

^  Augustine  {Senn,  cxxx.  i):  Grande  miraculum :  sed  non  niultum 
mirabimur  factum,  si  adtendamus  facientem,  Ille  multiplicavit  in 
manibua  frangentium  quinque  panes,  qui  in  terra  germinantia  multiplicat 
semina,  ut  grana  pauca  mittantur,  et  horrea  repleantur.  Sed  quia  illud 
omui  anno  facit,  nemo  miratur.  Admirationem  tollit  non  facti  vilitaa 
sed  assiduitas.     And  again  {In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xxiv.):  Quia  enim  .... 


286  THE   MIRACULOUS  FEEDING 

this  last  observation,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  tbat  the 
analogy  is  good  only  to  a  certain  point.  For  tbat  wliicli 
finds  place  in  the  field  is  the  unfolding  of  the  seed  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  its  own  being.  Thus,  if  the  Lord  had 
taken  a  few  grains  of  corn  and  cast  thera  into  the  ground, 
and  if,  a  moment  after,  a  large  harvest  had  sprung  up,  to 
this  the  name  of  such  a  *  divinely-hastened  process '  might 
have  been  fitly  applied.'  But  with  bread  it  is  otherwise; 
since,  before  that  is  made,  there  must  be  new  interpo- 
sitions of  man's  art,  and  those  of  such  a  nature  as  that  by 
them  the  very  life,  which  up  to  this  point  has  unfolded 
itself,  must  be  crushed  and  destroyed.  A  grain  of  Avheat 
left  to  itself  could  never,  according  to  the  laws  of  natural 
development,  issue  in  a  loaf  of  bread.  And,  moreover,  the 
Lord  does  not  start  from  the  simple  germ,  from  the  lifeful 
rudiments,  in  which  all  the  seeds  of  a  future  life  might  be 
supposed  to  be  wrapt  up,  and  by  Him  rapidly  developed, 
but  with  the  latest  artificial  product.     The  oak  is  folded 

miracula  ejus,  quibus  totum  mundum  regit,  universamque  creaturam 
administrat,  assiduitate  viluerunt,  ita  ut  pene  nemo  dignetur  adtendere 
opera  Dei  mira  et  stupenda  in  quolibet  seminis  grano;  secundum  ipsam 
suam  misericordiam  servavit  sibi  qusedam  quae  faceret  opportuno  tempore 
prfeter  usiiatum  cursum  ordinemque  naturae,  ut  non  majora  sed  iusolita 

videndo  stuperent,  quibus  quotidiana  viluerant Illud  mirantur 

bomines,  non  quia  niajus  est,  sed  quia  rarum  est.  Quis  enim  et  nunc 
pascit  universum  mundum,  nisi  ille  qui  de  paucis  granis  segetes  creat  ? 
Fecit  ergo  quomodo  Deus.  Unde  enim  multiplicat  de  paucis  granis 
seo-etes,  inde  in  manibus  suis  multiplicavit  quinque  panes.  Potestas  euira 
erat  in  manibus  Cbristi.  Panes  autem  illi  quinque  quasi  semina  erant, 
non  quidem  terra3  maudata,  sed  ab  eo  qui  terram  Cecit,  multiplirata.  And 
ao-ain,  Scrm.  cxxvi.  3  :  Quotidiana  miracula  Dei  non  facilitate  sed  assi- 
duitate viluerant.  .  .  .  Mirati  sunt  bomines,  Dominum  Deum  nostrum 
Jesum  Cbristum  de  quinque  panibus  saginasse  tot  millia,  et  non  mi- 
rantur per  pauca  grana  iujpleri  segetibus  terras Quia  tibi  ista 

viluerant,  venit  ipse  ad  facienda  insolita,  ut  et  in  ipsis  solitis  agnosceres 
Artificeni  tuum.     Cf.  Serni.  ccxlvii. 

1  In  tbe  EcmujeUum  S.  Thomce  sucb  a  miracle  is  ascribed  to  tbe  child 
Jesus;  tbe  wonder,  bowever,  not  consisting  in  tbe  swiftness,  but  tbe 
largeness,  of  tbe  return.  He  goes  out  at  sowing  time  witb  Josepb  into 
the  field,  and  sows  there  a  single  grain  of  wheat ;  from  this  lie  has  the 
return  of  a  hundred  cors,  which  He  distributes  to  the  ijoor  TTbilo.  Cod. 
Apoayphus,  p.  302). 


OF  FIVE    THOUSAND.  287 

up  in  tlie  acorn,  but  not  in  the  piece  of  timber  liewn  a-nd 
shaped  from  itself.  This  analogy  then,  even  as  such,  pre- 
sently breaks  down;  and,  renouncing  all  helps  to  faith 
from  this  quarter,'  we  must  be  content  to  behold  in  this 
multiplying  of  the  bread  an  act  of  divine  omnipotence,* — 
not  indeed  now,  as  at  the  first,  of  absolute  creation  out  of 
nothing,  since  there  was  a  substratum  to  work  on  in  the 
original  loaves  and  fishes,  but  an  act  of  creative  accretion; 
a  qitantitative,  as  in  the  warter  turned  into  wine  there  was 
a  qualitative,  miracle,  the  bread  growing  in  the  Lord's 
liands,  so  that  from  that  little  stock  all  the  multitude  Avere 
abundantly  supplied.  Thus  He,  all  whose  works  were 
'  signs '  and  had  a  tongue  by  which  they  spoke  to  the 
world,  did  in  this  miracle  proclaim  Himself  the  true  bread 
of  the  world,  which  should  satisfy  the  hunger  of  men  ;  the 
unexhausted  and  inexhaustible  source  of  all  life,  in  whom 
there  should  be  enough  and  to  spare  for  all  the  spiritual 
needs  of  all  hungering  souls  in  all  ages.^     For,  in  Augus- 

^  The  attempt  to  find  in  the  natural  world  analogies,  nearer  or  more 
remote,  for  the  miracles  may  spring  from  two,  and  those  very  opposite, 
motives.  Some  will  endeavour  hereby  to  realize  to  themselves,  so  far  as 
this  is  allowed  them,  the  course  of  the  miracle,  and  by  the  help  of  work- 
ings not  whoUj^  dissimilar,  to  bring  it  vividly  before  the  eye  of  their 
mind, — delighted  in  thus  finding  traces  of  one  and  the  same  God  in  the 
lower  world  and  the  higher,  and  in  marking  how  the  natural  and  super- 
natural are  concentric  circles,  though  one  wider  than  and  containing  the 
other ;  as  when  in  animal  magnetism  analogies  have  been  found  to  the 
healing  power  which  streamed  forth  from  Christ,  and  this  by  some  who 
have  kept  this  obscure  and  perilous  power  of  our  lower  natui'e  altogether 
distinct  from  that  pure  element  of  light  and  life,  which  went  forth  and 
was  diffused  from  Him.  But  these  analogies  may  be  sought  out  and 
welcomed  in  a  very  different  spii-it,  with  the  view,  by  their  aid,  of  escaping 
from  the  miraculous  in  the  miracle  altogether;  as  when  some  have 
eagei'ly  snatched  at  these  same  facts  of  animal  magnetism,  not  as  lower 
and  remote  analogies,  but  as  identical,  or  well  nigh  identical,  facts  with 
the  miraculous  healings  of  our  Lord. 

^  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  ix.)  :  Omnipotentia  Domini  quasi  fons 
panis  erat;  and  again  {Enarr.  ii.  in  Ps.  ex.  10):  Fontes  panis  erant  ic 
manibus  Domini. 

'  Thus  Prudentius : 

Tu  cibus  panisque  noster,  tu  perennis  suavitas  ; 
Nescit  esurire  in  sevum  qui  tuam  sumit  dapem, 
Nee  lacunam  veutris  implot,  sed  fovet  vitalia. 


288  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEDING 

tine's  language,  once  already  quoted,  '  He  was  the  Word 
of  God ;  and  all  the  acts  of  the  "Word  are  themselves 
words  for  us  ;  they  are  not  as  pictures,  merely  to  look  at 
and  admire,  but  as  letters,  which  we  must  seek  to  read 
and  understand.'  ' 

"When  all  had  eaten  and  were  satisfied,  the  disciples  '  tooli 
up  of  the  fragments  that  remained  twelve  baskets  full/  for 
every  Apostle  a  basket;  St.  Mark  alone  records  that  it  was 
so  done  with  the  fishes  also ;  the  existence  of  these  frag- 
ments witnessing  that  there  had  been  enough  for  all,  and 
to  spare  (2  Kin.  iv.  43,  44;  Ruth  ii.  14).  Only  St.  John 
mentions  that  they  do  this  at  their  Lord's  bidding,  and 
only  he  the  motive,  '  that  nothing  he  lost.'^  For  thus,  as 
Olshausen  remarks,  with  the  Lord  of  nature,  as  with 
nature  herself,  the  most  j^rodigal  bounty  goes  hand  in  hand 
with  the  nicest  and  exactest  economy ;  and  He  who  had 
but  now  shown  Himself  God,  again  submits  Himself  to  the 
laws  and  proprieties  of  his  earthly  condition,  so  that,  as  in 
the  miracle  itself  his  power,  in  this  command  his  humility, 
shines  eminently  forth.  This  which  remained  over  must 
have  immensely  exceeded  in  bulk  and  quantity  the  original 
stock ;  and  we  thus  have  here  a  visible  symbol  of  that 
love  which  exhausts  not  itself  by  loving,  but  after  all  its 
outgoings  upon  others,  abides  itself  far  richer  than  it 
would  have  done  but  for  these  ;  of  the  multiplying  which 
there  ever  is  in  a  true  dispensing  ;  of  the  increasing  which 
may  go  along  with  a  scattering  (Prov.  xi.  24  -,  cf.  2  Kin. 
iv.  1-7). 

St.  John, — always  careful  to  note  whatever  actively 
stirred  up  the  malignity  of  Christ's  enemies,   and  thus 

^  Verbum  Dei  est  Christus,  qui  iion  solum  sonis  sed  etiam  factis 
loquitur  liominibus ;  cf.  Li  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xxiv. :  Interrofremus  ipsa 
miracula  quid  nobis  loquautur  de  Christo;  babent  enim,  si  iutelligantur, 
linguam  suam. 

"^  Guilliaud  adds  another  reason  fur  this  command  :  Ne  quis  phantasma, 
prtestigium,  aut  imaginationem  esse  causaretuv,  dixit  discipulis,  Colligite 
reliquias  convivii,  ne  quid  pereat. 


OF  FIVE  THOUSAND.  289 

hastened  the  final  catastroplie, — to  which  nothing  more 
contributed  than  the  utterances  of  the  people's  favour, — 
alone  tells  ns  of  the  impression  which  this  miracle  left 
ui^on  the  multitude  ;  how  '  they  that  had  seen  the  mir- 
acle that  Jesus  did,  said,  This  is  of  a  truth  the  jjrophet 
that  should  come  into  the  world,''  the  pi'ophet  of  whom 
Moses  spake,  like  to  himself,  whom  God  would  raise  up 
(J)eut.  xviii.  15;  cf.  John  i.  21;  Mai.  iii.  i)  ;  and  how 
they  would  fain,  with  or  without  his  consent,  have  made 
Him  their  king  ;  for  they  recognized  the  kingly,  as  well  as 
the  prophetic,  character  of  their  future  Messiah  (John  i. 
50) :  and,  as  St.  John's  word  implies,  would  have  carried 
Him,  willing  or  unwilling,  to  Jerusalem,  and  installed 
Him  there  in  the  royal  seat  of  David.*  It  was  not  merely 
the  power  which  He  here  displayed  that  moved  them  so 
mightily,  but  the  fact  that  a  miracle  exactly  of  this  cha- 
racter was  looked  for  from  the  Messiah.  He  was  to  repeat, 
so  to  say,  the  miracles  of  Moses.  As  Moses,  the  first  re- 
deemer, had  given  bread  of  wonder  to  the  people  in  the 
wilderness,  even  so  should  the  later  Redeemer  do  the  same.' 
Thus  too,  when  the  first  enthusiasm  which  this  work  had 
stirred  was  spent,  the  Jews  compare  it  with  what  Moses 
had  done,  not  any  longer  to  find  evidence  here  that  as 
great  or  a  greater  prophet  was  among  them,  but  in- 
vidiously to  depress  the  pi-esent  mu-acle  by  comparison 
with  the  past ;  and  in  the  inferiority  of  the  later  to  find 
proof  that  He  who  wrought  it  was  no  Messiah  after  all, 
with  the  right  to  rebuke  and  command  them.  *  What  sign 
showest  Thou,  that  we  may  see  and  believe  Thee  ?  What 
dost  Thou  work?      Our   fathers   did  eat   manna  in  the 

^  Godet :  Le  terme  uptr cY^uv  iie  permet  pas  douter  que  le  projet  ne  fut 
de  s'eniparer  de  J&us,  meme  malgre  lui,  afiu  d'aller  le  couronner  a 
Jerusalem. 

*  Sclioettgen  (^Ilor.  Heh.  in  loc,  from  the  Midrasch  Coheleth):  Quem- 
admodum  Gcel  primus,  sic  quoque  erit  postremus.  Goel  primus  des- 
cendere  fecit  Man,  q.  d.  Exod,  xvi.  4,  Et  pluere  faciam  vobis  panem  de 
cselo.  Sic  quoque  Goel  postremus  descenders  facit  Man,  q.  d.  Ps.  lx.\ii. 
1 6,  Erit  multitudo  frumenti  super  terraui. 


290    MIRACULOUS  FEEDING  OF  FIVE  THOUSAND. 

desert,  as  it  is  -sTritten,  He  gave  them  bread  froTKi  heaven  to 
eat '  (John  vi.  30,  31) ;  '  while  the  bread  which  Thou  hast 
given,'  for  so  much  they  would  imply,  *  is  but  this  com- 
mon bread  of  earth,  wherewith  Thou  hast  once  nourished 
a  few  thousands.' ' 

But  whatever  resemblance  may  exist  between  that 
miracle  and  this,  there  is  another  in  the  Old  Testament, 
already  referred  to,  which  this  resembles  more  nearly,  that 
namely  which  Elisha  wrought,  when  with  the  twenty 
loaves  of  barley  he  satisfied  a  hundred  men  (2  Kin.  iv. 
42-44).  All  the  7'udiments  of  this  miracle  there  appear;'^ 
the  two  substances,  one  artificial,  one  natural,  from  which 
the  many  persons  are  fed;  as  here  bread  and  fish,  so  there 
bread  and  fresh  ears  of  corn.  As  the  disciples  are  incre- 
dulous here,  so  there  the  servitor  asks,  '  Should  I  set  this 
before  a  hundred  men  ?  '  As  here  twelve  baskets  of  frag- 
ments remain,  so  there  '  they  did  eat,  and  left  thereof.' 
Yet  were  they  only  the  weaker  rudiments  of  this  miracle; 
a  circumstance  which  the  difference  between  the  servants 
and  the  Lord  sufficiently  explains.  The  prophets  having 
grace  only  in  measure,  so  in  measure  they  wrought  their 
works ;  but  the  Son,  working  with  infinite  power,  and 
with  power  not  lent  Him,  but  his  own,  did  all  with  much 
superabundance. 

^  Tertullian  (Adu.  Marc.  iv.  21):  Non  imo  die,  sed  aimis  quadraginta, 
nee  de  inferioiibus  niateriis  panis  et  piscis,  sed  de  manna  caelesti,  nee 
quinque  circiter  sed  sexcenta  millia  liominum  protelavit. 

^  Tertullian  notes  this  prefiguration  of  the  miracles  of  Christ  in  those 
of  his  servants,  against  the  Gnostics,  who  would  fain  have  cut  loose  the 
New  Testament  from  the  Old,  and  found  not  merely  distinction,  but  direct 
opposition,  between  them  (Adv.  Marc.  iv.  21):  Invenies  totum  hunc 
ordinem  Christi  circa  ilium  Dei  hominem,  qui  oblatos  sibi  vijiinti  hor- 
deaceos  panes  cum  populo  distribui  jussisset,  et  minister  ejus  proindo 
comparata  multitudiue  et  pabuli  mediocritate,  respondlsset,  Quid  ergo 
hoc  dem  in  conspectu  centum  hominum  ?     Da,  inquit,  et  manducabant. 

0  Christum  et  in  novis  veterem !     Ilrec   itaque  qure  viderat, 

Petrus,  et  cum  pristinis  comparat,  et  non  tantum  retro  facta,  sed  et  iu 
futurum  jam  tunc  prophetantia  recognoverat,  interroganti  Domino, 
quisnam  illis  videretur,  cum  pro  o)iinibus  responderet,  Tu  es  Christus, 
non  potest  non  eum  aensisse  Ciirisiura,  nisi  quern  noverat  in  scripturis, 
quern  jam  recensebat  in  factis. 


17.     THE  WALKING   ON  THE  SEA. 

Matt.  xiv.  22-33;  Mark  vi.  45-52;  Joun  vi.  14-21. 

rjlHE  three  Evangelists  wlio  narrate  this  miracle  alike 
JL  place  it  in  immediate  sequence  to  the  feeding  of  the 
five  thousand,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  same  daj.  The 
two  earlier  relate,  that  when  all  were  fed,  and  the  Lord 
was  now  about  to  dismiss  the  multitude,  '  straightway  He 
constrained  his  disciples  to  get  into  the  ship.'  Why  He 
should  have  found  it  necessary  to  *  constrain  '  them,  they 
do  not  tell  us.  Some  vaguely  suggest  a  general  unwilling- 
ness on  their  part  to  be  separated,  even  for  a  season,  from 
their  Lord.^  But  the  true  hey  to  the  phrase  is  obtained, 
when  we  compare  the  parallel  record  of  St.  John.  There 
we  learn  that  the  multitude  desired  to  take  Jesus  by  force 
and  make  Him  a  king ;  and  that  He  only  avoided  this,  by 
departing  into  a  mountain  Himself  alone.  The  disciples 
could  not  avoid  being  aware  of  the  shape  which  the 
popular  enthusiasm,  roused  to  the  highest  pitch  by  the 
recent  mu*acle,  was  taking.  This  was  exactly  to  their 
mind;  it  was  precisely  this  which  they  had  long  hoped  would 
arrive  ;  so  that  they  must  have  been  most  reluctant  to  quit 
their  Master  at  the  moment  of  his  approaching  exaltation. 
So,  however,  it  must  be,  and  while  He  dismisses  the 
people,  they  must  '  go  before  Him  unto  the  other  side,'  or 
'  unto  Bethsaida,'  as  St.  Mark  has  it.  There  is  no  contra- 
diction between  this  account  and  St.  John's,  that  they 
'we7it  over  the  sea  towards  Capernaum;'  since  this  Bethsaida, 

*  Aa  Jerome  ;  aud  Chiysoslom :  To  iiva-jKaafv  ce.  hth',  tw  7r(.XA/}»/ 


292  THE   WALXma   ON-  THE  SEA. 

not  identical  with  tliat  just  before  mentioned  by  St.  Luke 
(ix.  lo),  and  for  distinction  called  Bethsaida  Julias,  but 
the  city  of  Philip  and  Andrew  and  Peter  (John  i.  44),  lay 
on  the  western  side  of  the  lake,  in  the  same  direction  as 
Capernaum,  and  near  to  it ;  is  indeed  generally  supposed 
to  have  been  a  fishing  suburb  of  that  town.  St.  Matthew, 
and  St.  Mark  with  him,  makes  two  evenings  to  this  day, — 
one  which  had  already  commenced  before  the  preparations 
for  the  feeding  of  the  multitude  had  begun  (ver.  15),  the 
other  now  when  the  disciples  had  entered  into  the  ship, 
and  set  forth  on  their  voyage  (ver.  23).  And  this  was  an 
ordinary  way  of  speaking  among  the  Jews,  the  first 
evening  being  very  much  our  afternoon  (see  Luke  ix.  12, 
where  the  '  evening  '  of  Matthew  and  Mark  is  described  as 
the  season  *  when  the  day  hegan  to  wear  away  ') ;  the  second 
evening'  being  the  twilight,  or  from  six  o'clock  to  twilight; 
on  which  absolute  darkness  followed.  It  was  the  first 
evening,  or  afternoon,  when  the  preparations  for  feeding 
the  five  thousand  commenced ;  the  second,  when  the 
disciples  took  ship. 

'  And  when  He  had  sent  the  multitudes  away,  He  went  up 
into  a  mountain  apart  to  vray  ;  and  when  even  was  come,  He 
was  there  alone'  From  thence,  with  the  watchful  eye  of 
love,  ^  He  saw  ther,i  toili7ig  in  rowing'  (cf.  Exod.  iii.  7;  Ps. 
Ivi.  8) ;  for  in  their  Lord's  absence  they  were  able  to  make 
no  effectual  progress  :  '  the  wind  was  contrary,'  and  the  sea 
rough :  their  sails,  of  course,  could  profit  them  nothing. 
It  was  now  '  the  fourth  watch  of  the  night,'  near  morning 
therefore,  and  notwithstanding  all  their  efforts  they  had 
not  accomplished  more  than  'five  and  twenty  or  thirty 
furlongs,'  scarcely,  that  is,  more  than  half  of  their  way, 
the  lake  being  forty  or  forty-five  furlongs  in  breadth.^ 

'    'Oy/iT  Sevr;pa, 

•  Tbomscn  (The  Land  and  the  Book,  pt.  ii.  c.  25)  :  'My  experience  in 
tliis  region  enables  me  to  sympathize  with  the  disciples  in  their  long 
night's  contest  with  the  wind.  I  spent  a  night  in  that  Wady  Shukalyif, 
bome  thiee  uiiies  up  it,  to  the  left  of  us.     The  sun  had  scai-ceiy  set  when 


THE    WALKING   OX  THE  SEA.  293 

Probably  they  were  ever  finding  themselves  more  unable 
to  proceed,  the  danger  probably  was  ever  increasing,  when 
suddenly  they  see  their  Lord  ^walking  on  the  sea,'^  and 
already  close  to  their  bark.  It  was  his  jJurpose  in  all  the 
events  of  this  night,  as  Clu-ysostom  well  brings  out,  to 
train  his  disciples  to  higher  things  than  hitherto  they  had 
learned.  That  first  storm  (Matt.  viii.  24)  was  by  day, 
this  was  by  night.  Then  He  was  present  in  the  ship  with 
them  ;  if  it  came  to  the  worst,  they  knew  that  they  might 
rouse  Him ;  while  the  mere  fact  of  his  presence  must  have 
given  them  the  sense  of  a  comparative  security.     But  they 

the  wind  began  to  rush  down  toward  the  lake,  and  it  continued  all  night 
long  with  constantly  increasing  violence,  so  that  wlien  we  reached  the 
shore  next  morning  the  face  of  the  lake  was  like  a  huge  boiling  caldron. 
The  wind  howled  down  every  wady  from  the  north-east  and  east  with 
such  fury  that  no  eftbrts  of  rowers  could  have  brought  a  boat  to  shore  at 
any  point  along  that  coast.  In  a  wind  like  that,  the  disciples  must  have 
been  driven  quite  across  to  Gennesai'et,  as  we  know  they  were.' 

^  Many  have  supposed  that  Lucian,  in  his  account  of  the  cork-footed 
race  ((ptWoTioctCf  Vcr.  Hist.  ii.  4)  whom  he  saw  from  his  ship  i-kI  tov 
iTtXciyovt;  ciaOsorrac,  intended  a  scoft"  at  this  miracle.  I  doubt  whether 
so  expert  a  scoffer,  had  he  meant  this,  would  not  have  done  it  better ; 
still  the  hint  which  he  gives  (i,  2),  that  something  lies  under  these 
absurd  and  extravagant  travellers'  tales  which  he  has  strung  together, 
that  they  every  one  contain  allusions  to  the  fables  and  portents  of  poets 
and  historians  and  jihUosophers,  leaves  it  not  altogether  improbable  ;  and 
in  the  PhUupseudes,  where  there  are  more  distinct  side-glances  at  the 
miracles  in  the  Gospels, — as  for  instance,  a  miraculously-healed  man 
taking  up  his  bed  (11),  the  expulsion  of  the  evil  spirit  from  a  demoniac 
(16),  reminding  one  singularly  of  that  recorded  Mark  ix.  1 4.-29 — this  also 
of  walking  on  the  water  recurs  (13),  among  the  incredible  things  pro- 
posed for  the  wise  man's  belief.  The  Golden  City  of  the  Blest,  with  its 
diamond  walls,  its  floors  of  ivory,  its  vines  bearing  fruit  every  month 
(TV.  Hid.  ii.  11-13),  may  very  well  be  conceived  in  rivalry  and  in 
ridicule  of  the  description  of  the  New  Jerusalem  (Rev.  xxi.  19  ;  xxii.  2), 
as  the  story  of  a  multitude  of  men  comfortably  housed  for  some  years  in 
the  belly  of  a  whale  {lb.  i.  30-42)  may  be  designed  as  an  outdoing  of 
Jonah's  three  days'  abode  in  tlie  same  place.  This  last  we  know  was  an 
especial  object  of  the  flouts  of  the  heathen  ;  see  Augustine  {Ep.  cii.  qu.  6), 
and  Josephus  (Antt.  ix.  10,  §  2),  who  aiming  to  make  his  works  accept- 
able to  the  educated  heathen,  gets  over  it  with  a  Xdyoc — '  as  some  say.' 
On  the  point  of  view  from  which  Lucian  contemplated  Christianity  see 
Krebs,  De  Malitioso  Lua'ani  Consilio  &-c.  in  his  Opysc.  Acad.  p.  308  ; 
Tzschimer,  Fall  des  Ileidentlnwis,  p.  320  ;  and  TJieol.  Studien  u.  Ki^ittkcn, 
1851,  pp.  826-902. 


294  THE    WALKING   ON   THE   SEA. 

must  learn  to  walk  b}'  faith,  and  not  by  sight ;  He  will  not 
have  them  as  the  ivy,  needing  always  an  outward  support, 
but  as  hardy  forest-trees,  which  can  brave  a  blast;  and 
this  time  He  puts  them  forth  into  the  danger  alone,  even 
as  some  loving  mother-bird  thrusts  her  fledglings  from  the 
nest,  that  they  may  find  their  own  wings  and  learn  to  use 
them.  And  the  happy  issue  of  all  shall  awaken  in  them 
an  abiding  confidence  in  his  ever-ready  help;  for  as  his 
walking  on  the  sea  must  have  been  altogether  unimagined 
and  unimaginable  by  them,  they  may  have  easily  despaired 
of  that  help  reaching  them;  but  He,  when  He  has  tried 
them  to  the  uttermost,  '  in  the  fourth  watch  of  the  night, ^ 
the  same  morning  watch  in  which  He  had  wrought  of  old 
another  deliverance,  not  really  more  significant,  though 
on  a  mightier  scale  (Exod.  xiv.  24),  appears  beside  them; 
thus  teaching  them  for  all  their  after  life,  in  all  coming 
storms  of  temptation,  that  He  is  near  them ;  that  Iioav- 
ever  He  may  not  be  seen  always  by  their  bodily  eyes,  how- 
ever they  may  appear  cut  off  from  his  assistance,  yet  is  He 
indeed  a  very  present  help  in  the  needful  time  of  trouble ; 
that  heaviness  may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  cometh  in 
the  morning. 

Nor  ought  we,  I  think,  to  fail  to  recognize  the  symbolic 
character  which  this  whole  transaction  wears.  As  that 
bark  upon  those  stormy  billows,  such  is  oftentimes  the 
Church,  tossed  to  and  fro  on  the  waves  of  the  troublesome 
world.  It  seems  as  though  its  Lord  had  forgotten  it,  so 
little  is  the  way  it  makes ;  so  baffled  is  it  and  tormented 
by  oj^posing  winds  and  waves.  But  his  eye  is  on  it  still ; 
He  is  in  the  mountain  apart  praying ;  ever  living,  an 
ascended  Saviour,  to  make  intercession  for  his  people. 
And  when  at  length  the  extremity  of  the  need  has  arrived. 
He  is  suddenly  with  it,  and  that  in  marvellous  ways  past 
finding  out ;  and  then  all  that  before  was  so  laborious  is 
easy,  and  the  toiling  rowers  are  anon  at  the  haven  where 
they  would  be. 

'  Thus  Bede:    LaLor   discipulorum   in  remigaudo   et  contrarius   eis 


THE    WALKING   ON   THE  SEA.  295 

*  And  when  the  disciples  saw  Him  walking  on  the  sea  they 
were  troubled,  saying,  It  is  a  spirit ;  ^  and  they  cried  out  for 
fear.'  It  is  often  so.  Let  Him  only  come  to  liis  people  in 
some  unwonted  manner,  as  He  lias  not  been  used  to  come 
in  time  past,  in  tlie  shape  of  some  affliction,  in  the  way  of 
some  cross,  and  they  know  Him  not.  Their  Lord,  and 
charged  with  blessings  for  them,  He  yet  seems  to  them 
as  some  terrible  phantom  of  the  night ;  and  they  too  cry 
ont  for  fear.'^  The  disciples  on  this  occasion  might  per- 
haps have  pleaded  that  there  was  that  in  his  approach  to 
their  bark,  which  would  not  allow  them  to  recognize  Him 
for  what  He  was.  He  'would  have  passed  themhy.^^  How 
could  they  suppose  that  this  was  their  Lord,  hastening  to 
the  help  of  his  own  ?  The  circumstance  perplexed  them 
for  a  moment ;  it  has  perplexed  others  lastingly.  Those 
who  are  on  the  watch  to  discover  inner  inconsistencies  in 
the  Gospels  have  asked,  *  Why  appear  to  pass  them  by 
and  to  escape  them,  when  the  only  aim  of  his  coming  was 
to  re-assure  and  to  aid  them  ?  when  He  so  little  really 
meant  to  do  this,  that  no  sooner  was  He  recognized  and 
detained  by  their  cries,  than  He  ascended  into  the  ship 

Tentus  labores  sanctse  Ecclesiae  varies  designat,  qu8e  inter  undas  seculi 
adversantis  et  immundorum  flatus  spirituum  ad  quietem  patriae  caslestis, 
quasi  ad  lidam  litoris  stationem,  pervenire  conatur.  Ubi  bene  dicitur, 
quia  navis  erat  in  medio  mari  et  ipse  solus  in  terra  ;  quia  nonnunquam 
Ecclesia  tantis  Gentilium  pressuris  non  solum  afflicta,  sed  et  foedata  est, 
ut,  si  fieri  posset,  Kedemptor  ipsius  earn  prorsus  deseruisse  ad  tempus 
videretiir.  .  .  .  Yidet  [tamen]  Dominus  laborantes  in  mari,  quamvis 
ipse  positus  in  terra ;  quia  etsi  ad  lioram  dift'erre  videatur  auxilium 
tribulatis  impendere,  nihiloniinus  eos,  ne  in  tribulationibus  deficiant,  suse 
respeetu  pietatis  corroborat,  et  aliquando  etiam  manifesto  adjutorio,  victis 
adversitatibus,  quasi  calcatis  sedatisque  fluctunm  voluminibus,  liberat. 
Cf.  Augustine,  Serm.  Ixxv.  So  too  An&elm  (Horn,  iii.)  :  Nam  quia 
insurgunt  fluctus,  potest  ista  navicula  turb.iri,  sed  quia  Christus  orat, 
non  potest  mergi. 

^   tbavrarfi,!  (cf.  "Wisd.  Xrii.  l^:=.(f)-^wi.in  fVKTtpivov  (Job.  XX.  8). 

'  Bengel :  Tiirbati  sunt.  Stepe  Christum  pro  alio  potius  quam  pro 
Christo  habemus. 

^  Calvin :  Pii  audito  ejus  nomine,  quod  illis  est  certura  et  diviniamoria 
et  su£e  salutis  pignus,  quasi  a  morte  in  vitam  excitati  animos  coUigunt, 
et  quasi  serenuni  caelum  hilares  conspiciunt,  quieti  in  terra  resident,  et 
omnium  malorum  victorcs  ejus  prcesidium  omnibus  periculis  opponunt. 


296  THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA. 

where  tliey  were  ?  '     Doubtless  this,  as  each  other  dealing 

of  God  with  his    servants,   is  hard  to  be  understood  of 

those  to  whom  the  entire  life  of  faith  is  altogether  strange. 

He  will  seem  to  pass  them  by,  seem  to  forsake  them ; 

and  so  evoke  theu*  prayer  and  their  cry,  that  He  would 

not  pass  them  by,  that  He  would  not  forsake  them.^   Not 

otherwise,  walking  with  his  two  disciples  to  Emmaus,  after 

his  resurrection,  '  He  made  as  though  He  would  have  gone 

further  '  (Luke  xxiv.  28),  thus  drawing  out  from  them  the 

entreaty  that  He  would  abide.     It  is  evermore  thus  ;  we 

have  here  no  exceptional   dealing,   but   one   finding   its 

analogies  everywhere  in  the  Scripture  and  in  the  Christian 

life.     What  part  does  Christ  sustain  here  different  from 

that  which  in  the  parable  of  the  Unjust  Judge  (Luke  xviii. 

2),  or  the  churlish  Friend  (Luke  xi.  5),  He  ascribes  to  God? 

or  different  from  that  which  He  Himself  sustained  when 

He  came  not  to  the  help  of  the  sisters  of  Bethany  in  what 

seemed  the  utmost  extremity  of  their  need  (John  xi.  6)  ? 

And  are  not  all  the  complaints  of  the  faithful   in  the 

Psa-lms,  that  God  hides  his  face,  that  He  gives  them  into 

the  hands  of  their  enemies,  that  He  is  absent  from  them 

so  long,  confessions  that  He  does  so  deal  with  his  sei-vants, 

that  by  delaying  and  seeming  to  pass  them  by.  He  quickens 

their  faith,  and  calls  out  their  prayers  that  He  would  come 

to  them  soon,  and  abide  with  them  always  ? 

And  now,  as  one  by  that  cry  of  distress  arrested  and  de- 
tained. He  at  once  scatters  and  rebukes  their  fears  :  *  Be 
of  good  cheer  ;  it  is  I ;  he  not  afraid.'  How  often  has  He 
to  speak  this  word  of  encouragement  even  to  his  own ; 
almost  always  when  they  are  brought  suddenly  or  in  any 
unusual  way  face  to  face  with  Him  ;  thus  see  Gen.  xv.  i  ; 
xxi.  1 7  ;  xxvi.  24 ;  Judg.  vi.  23  ;  Matt.  xvii.  7  ;  xxviii.  5  ; 

^  Augustine  (De  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  47) :  Quomodo  ergo  eos  volebat 
prseterire,  quos  paventes  ita  confirmat,  nisi  quia  ilia  voluntas  prastereundi 
ad  eiiciendum  ilium  clamorem  valebat,  cuisubveniri  oportebat  ?  Corn,  a 
Lapide :  Volebat  pra^terire  eos,  quasi  eos  non  curans,  nee  ad  eos  pertineus, 
sed  alio  pergens,  uc  in  eis  metum  et  clamorem  excitaret. 


THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA.  297 

Luke  if.  10  ;  Rev.  i.  17).  And  now  follows  that  cliaracter- 
istic  rejoinder  of  Peter,  wliicli,  witli  its  'consequences,  Sr. 
Matthew  alone  records  :  '  Lord,  if  it  he  Thou,  hid  me  come 
unto  Thee  on  the  water.'  That  'if  must  not  be  interpreted 
as  implying  a  doubt  whether  it  was  the  Lord  or  not.  A 
Thomas,  indeed,  may  have  required  to  have  Jesus  with  him 
in  the  ship,  ere  he  would  fully  believe  that  it  was  no  phan- 
tom, but  his  very  Lord ;  but  Peter's  fault  would  be  of 
another  kind.  His  words  mean  rather  :  '  Snice  it  is  Thou, 
command  me  to  come  unto  Thee ; '  for  he  feels  rightly 
that  Christ's  command  must  go  before  his  coming.  And, 
doubtless,  it  was  the  promptness  and  forwardness  of  love 
which  made  him  ask  for  this  command,  which  made  him 
desire  to  be  where  his  Lord  was  (John  xxi.  7).  Perhaps, 
too,  he  would  compensate  for  that  exclamation  of  tei*ror 
in  which  he  had  joined  with  the  rest,  by  an  heroic  act  of 
courage  and  affiance.  And  yet  there  was  a  fault  in  all 
this,  as  the  issue  proved,  such  as  made  the  whole  incident 
a  rehearsal  of  the  greater  presumption  and  the  more 
serious  fall  in  store  for  the  too  confident  discijile  (Matt. 
xxvi.  33,  70).  In  that  'Bid  me,'  the  fault  may  be  found. 
He  will  outdo  and  outdare  the  other  disciples ;  will  signa- 
lize himself  by  a  mightier  testimony  of  faith  than  anyone 
of  them  will  venture  to  render.  It  is  but  in  another  shape, 
'Although  all  shall  be  offended,  yet  will  not  I.' 

Let  us  observe,  and  with  reverence  admire,  the  wisdom 
and  love  of  the  Lord's  answer.  Another,  with  enough  of 
spiritual  insight  to  detect  what  was  amiss  in  Peter's  pro- 
posal, might  yet  by  less  skilful  treatment  have  marred  all, 
and  lost  for  him  the  lessons  it  so  much  behoved  him  to 
receive.  Had  his  Lord,  for  example,  commanded  him  to 
remain  where  he  was.  He  would  at  once  have  checked  the 
outbreaks  of  his  fervent  spirit,  which,  when  purified  from 
the  carnal  that  mingled  with  them,  were  to  carry  him  so  far 
and  caused  him  to  miss  the  instruction  whicii  throuo-h  his 
partial  failure  he  obtained.     But  with  more  gracious  and 


298  THE   WALKING   ON  THE  SEA. 

discriminating  wisdom  the  great  Master  of  souls  ;  -who  yet, 
knowing  what  the  event  must  prove,  pledges  not  Himself 
for  the  issue  of  his  coming.  Peter  had  said,  *  Bid  me ; ' 
there  is  no  '  I  bid,'  in  the  Lord's  reply.  Peter  had  said, 
*  come  unto  Thee ; '  the  *  unto  Me'  disappears  from  the  Lord's 
answer ;  which  is  only  *  Come ; '  that  is,  '  if  thou  wilt ; 
make  the  experiment,  if  thou  desirest.'  It  is  a  merely 
permissive  '  Come ; '  like  Joab's  '  Run '  to  Ahimaaz  (2 
Sam.  xviii.  22).  Doubtless  it  contained  a  pledge  that 
Peter  should  not  be  wholly  swallowed  up  by  the  waves, 
but  none  for  the  successful  issue  of  the  feat ;  which  all 
would  in  very  faithfulness  have  been  involved,  had  the 
Lord's  words  been  the  entire  echo  of  his  disciple's.  What 
the  issue  should  be,  depended  upon  Peter  himself, — whe- 
ther he  should  keep  the  beginning  of  his  confidence  firm 
unto  the  end.  And  He  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  knew 
that  he  would  not ;  that  this  was  not  the  pure  couray^e  of 
faith ;  that  what  of  carnal  over-boldness  there  was  in  it 
would  infallibly  be  exchanged,  when  the  stress  of  the  trial 
came,  for  fear  and  unbelief. 

It  was  even  so.  '  When  Peter  was  come  down  out  of  the 
ship,  he  walked  on  the  water,  to  go  to  Jesiis.'  This  for  a 
while ;  so  long  as  he  looked  to  his  Lord  and  to  Him  only, 
he  also  was  able  to  walk  upon  the  unsteady  surface  of  the 
sea,  to  tread  upon  the  ivaters,  which  for  him  also  were  not 
waves.  But  when  he  took  counsel  of  flesh  and  blood,  when 
he  saw  something  else  besides  Jesus,  then,  because  '  he  saw 
the  wind  boisterous,  he  was  afraid,  and  beginning  to  sinh,^  he 
cried,  saying.  Lord,  save  me.'  He  who  had  thought  to  make 
a  show  before  all  the  other  disciples  of  a  courage  which 
transcended  theirs,  must  now  in  the  presence  of  them  all 
confess  his  terror,  and  reveal  the  weakness,  as  he  had 
thought  to  display  the  strength,  of  his  faith.  In  this 
moment  of  peril  his  swimmer's  art  (John  xxi.  7)  profits 
him  nothing;  for  there  is  no   mingling  in  this  way  of 

'   Kara-oj'ri','ta:ni=/3ii0i^eiTro(,  Luke  V.  7  ;   I  Tim.  vi.  9. 


THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA.  299 

nature  and  of  grace.  He  who  has  entered  the  wonder- 
world  of  grace  must  not  supjjose  that  he  may  withdraw 
from  it  at  any  moment  that  he  will,  and  betake  himself 
to  his  old  resources  of  nature.  He  has  foregone  these, 
and  must  cany  through  what  he  has  begun,  or  fail  at  his 
peril. 

But  Peter  has  to  do  with  One  who  will  not  allow  him 
greatly  to  fall.  His  experience  shall  be  that  of  the 
Psalmist :  *  When  I  said,  My  foot  slippeth,  thy  mercy, 
O  Lord,  held  me  up.' '  His  'Lord,  save  me,'  is  answered 
at  once.  '  Immediately  Jesus  stretched  forth  his  hand,  and 
caught  him.*  And  then  how  gracious  the  rebuke  !  *  0  thou 
of  little  faith  /'  He  does  not  say  'of  none ! '  and  '  Wherefore 
didst  thou  doubt  ?  '  not  '  Wherefore  didst  thou  come  ? '  thus, 
instead  of  checking,  as  He  then  would  have  done,  the  fu- 
ture impulses  of  his  servant's  boldness,  encouraging  them 
rather ;  showing  him  how  he  could  do  all  things  through 
Christ  strengthening  him,  and  that  his  error  lay,  not  in 
undertaking  too  much,  but  in  too  little  relying  upon  that 
strength  which  would  have  triumphantly  borne  him 
through  all.'  And  not  until  by  that  sustaining  hand  He 
has  restored  confidence  to  the  fearful  one,  and  made  him 
feel  that  he  can  indeed  tread  under  foot  those  waves  of  the 
unquiet  sea,  does  He  speak  even  this  word  of  a  gentle  re- 
buke. The  courage  of  the  disciple  has  already  returned,  so 
that  the  Master  sj^eaks  of  his  doubt  as  of  something  which 
is  already  past :  '  Wherefore  didst  thou  doubt  ?  Before  the 
doubt  arose  in  thy  heart,  thou  didst  walk  on  these  waves, 
and  now  that  thy  faith  has  returned,  thou  dost  walk  on 
them  again  ;  thou  seest  that  it  is  not  impossible,  that  it 
lies  but  in  thy  faithful  will ;  that  all  things  are  possible 
to  him  that  believetli.' 

*  Augustine  very  beautifully  brings  together  those  ■words  of  the 
Psalmist  and  this  incident,  making  them  mutually  to  illustrate  one 
another  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  xciii.  18). 

*  Bengal :  Non  reprehenditur  quod  exierit  e  navi,  sed  quod  non  man- 
serit  in  lirmitate  tidei. 

20 


300  THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA. 

We  must  look  at  tliis  episode  of  the  miracle  as  itself 
also  symbolic.  Peter  is  here  the  example  of  all  the  faith- 
ful of  all  times,  in  the  seasons  of  their  unfaithfulness  and 
fear.  So  long  as  they  are  strong  in  faith,  they  are  able  to 
tread  under  foot  all  the  most  turbulent  agitations  of  an 
unquiet  world ;  but  when  they  are  afraid,  when,  instead 
of  '  looking  unto  Jesus,'  they  look  at  the  stormy  Avinds  and 
waters,  then  these  prevail  against  them,  and  tlaey  begin 
to  sink,  and  were  it  not  for  Christ's  sustaining  hand, 
which  is  stretched  out  in  answer  to  their  cry,  they  would 
be  wholly  overwhelmed  and  swallowed  up.^ 

'^  And  when  they  were  come  into  the  ship,  the  tuind  ceased.' 
Those  on  the  watch  for  discrepancies  between  one  Evan- 
gelist and  another  are  pleased  here  to  discover  such,  be- 
tween St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  on  one  side,  and  St.  John 
on  the  other.  If,  they  say,  we  are  to  believe  the  former, 
the  Lord  did  now  with  his  disciple  go  up  into  the  ship ; 
if,  on  the  contrary,  we  accept  the  authority  of  St.  John, 
we  must  then  suppose  that  the  disciples  were  willing  to 
receive  Him ;  but  did  not  so  in  fact,  the  ship  being 
rapidly,  and,  as  would  seem,  with  miraculous  swiftness, 
brought  to  the  land.  The  whole  question  turns  on  the 
words  which  we  translate,  and  I  have  no  doubt  rightly  as 
regards  the  circumstance  which  actually  took  place,  '  they 
willingly  received  Him  into  the  ship.'     It  is  quite  true  they 

^  Augustine  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  xxxix.  6) :  Galea  mare,  ne  mergaris  in 
niari.  And  again  (^Serm,  Ixxxvi.  6) :  Attendite  seculum  quasi  mare, 
ventus  validus  et  magna  tempestas,  Unicuique  sua  cupiditas,  tempestas 
est.  Amas  Deum,  ambulas  super  mare :  sub  pedibus  tuis  est  seculi 
tumor.  Amas  seculum,  absorbebit  te.  Amatores  suos  vorare  novit,  non 
portare.  Sed  cum  fluctuat  cupiditate  cor  tuum,  ut  vincas  tuam  cupidi- 
tatem,  invoca  Christi  divinitatem.  .  .  .  Et  si  motus  est  pes  tuus,  si 
titubas,  si  aliqua  non  superas,  si  mergi  incipia,  die,  Domine,  pereo,  libera 
me.  Die,  Domine,  pereo,  ne  pereas.  Solus  enim  a  morte  carnis  liberat 
te,  qui  mortuus  est  in  came  pro  te.  And  again  :  Titubatio  ista,  fratres, 
quasi  mors  fidei  fuit  Sed  ubi  exclamavit,  fides  iterum  resurrexit.  Non 
ambularet,  nisi  credoret,  sed  nee  mergeretur,  nisi  dubitaret.  In  Petro 
itaque  communis  omnium  nostrum  consideranda  conditio,  ut  si  nos  in 
aliquo  ten^ationum  ventus  conatur  subvertere,  vel  unda  submergere, 
ciamemus  ad  Christum.     Cf.  De  Cant.  Novo,  x. 


THE    WALKING    ON   THE   SEA.  3OI 

wouH  be  more  literally  rendered,  *  they  were  willing  to  re- 
ceive Him  into  the  ship ; '  but  with,  the  implicit  understand- 
ing tliat  what  tbey  were  willing  to  do,  they  actually  did. 
Those  who  a  little  before  were  terrified  and  dreaded  his 
approach,  as  thougb  it  had  been  a  spirit,  were  now  glad  * 
to  receive  Him  in  their  midst,''  and  did  so  receive  Him ; 

1  Grotius :  Non  quod  non  receperunt,  sed  quod  cupide  admodum,  ut 
Syrus  indicat. 

*  Our  Translators  would  have  done  better  if,  foUovring  the  earlier 
English  Versions,  they  had  so  rendered  ijOiXov  Xutiuv  avTi<v.  Probably 
to  Beza's  influence  we  owe  the  change.  For  Toluerunt  recipere  eum  of 
the  Vulgate  he  substitutes  volente  animo  receperunt  eum,  and  defends 
the  translation  thus:  Itaque  verbuni  ifitXov  opponitur  ei  quod  ante  dixerat, 
eos  videlicet  fuisse  perterritos :  ex  quo  intelligitur  ipsos  initio  fuisse 
eum  aversatos,  nunc  vero  agnita  ejus  voce  et  mutatis  animis  eum 
quern  fugiebant,  cupide  accepisse  in  navem.  This  is  perfectly  true ;  yet 
had  the  passage  been  left,  '  they  ioere  xoilUng  to  receive  Him,^  none  reading 
this  Gospel  of  St.  John  in  the  light  of  the  other  two,  could  doubt  that 
this  willingness,  which,  now  when  they  recognized  their  Master,  they 
felt,  issued  in  the  actual  receiving  of  Him  :  and  none  could  accuse  our 
Translators  of  going  out  of  their  way  to  produce  a  harmony,  which  in 
the  original  did  not  so  evidently  exist.  That  BkXnv  means  often  to  wish 
to  do  a  thing  and  to  do  it,  hardly  needs  proof.  Thus  Matt,  xviii.  23,  a 
king  desired  to  take  account  ())0i\7]ne  awapai  \6yov)  with  his  servants, 
and,  as  we  know  from  the  sequel,  did  so;  again,  John  i.  43,  Jesus  desired 
to  go  forth  into  Galilee  {I'l'tXijirev  tS,t\Urn),  and,  as  we  learn  ii.  2,  actually 
went ;  the  Sci'ibes  desire  to  walk  in  long  robes  (Mark  xii.  38)  and  do  so. 
The  word  may  quite  as  well  imply  an  accomplished,  as  a  baulked,  desire 
(cf.  Luke  XX.  46  ;  i  Cor.  x.  27  ;  Col.  ii,  8).  It  is  true  that  we  have  an 
imperfect,  the  tense  oftentimes  of  uncompleted  action,  here ;  yet  consider- 
ing the  words  which  directly  follow,  'and  immediately  the  sliip  was  at  the 
land  ivMther  they  went,^  and  the  impossibility  that  St.  John  can  mean 
that  this  desire  of  theirs  icas  defeated  by  the  instantaneous  arrival  of  the 
ship  at  the  land,  or  that  he  can  intend  to  ascribe  that  arrival  to  any  other 
cause  except  to  the  fact  that  Christ  was  now  in  the  ship,  we  may  safely 
put  back  any  argument  which  should  be  derived  from  the  use  of  the 
imperfect  here.  It  is  of  this  passage  that  a  recent  assailant  of  the 
credibility  of  our  Gospels  has  written,  *  By  the  irreconcilable  contradiction 
between  John  and  the  synoptic  Evangelists  in  the  matter  of  receiving 
Christ  into  the  ship,  one  or  other  account  must  be  given  up.'  To  be 
sure  he  does  his  best  to  make  a  contradiction,  if  he  cannot  find  one ;  afErm- 
ing  that  Km  in  the  second  clause  of  ver.  21  must  be  taken  adversative, 
— '  they  were  willing  to  receive  Him  into  the  ship,  hut  straightway  the 
ship  was  at  the  land  ; '  and  De  Wette,  Aber  alsbald  war  das  Schiff  am 
Lande.  Ewald  in  like  manner  sees  in  St.  John  a  rectification,  and  not  a 
confirmation,  of  the  account  given  by  the  earlier  Evangelists  ;  but  Baum- 
lein,  one  of  the  latest  commentators  on  St.  John^  and  one  troubled  with 


302  THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA. 

*  and  immediatelif  the  ship  was  at  the  land  whither  they 
went.'  * 

St.  Mark,  as  is  so  often  his  wont  (cf.  ii.  12;  v.  42  ;  vii. 
37;  ix.  15),  describes  to  us  how  this  and  all  which  they  had 
witnessed  called  forth  the  infinite  astonishment  of  his  dis- 
ciples :  '  they  were  sore  amazed  in  themselves  beyond  measure, 
and  wondered ;'  while  from  St.  Matthew  we  learn  that  the 
impression  was  not  confined  to  them  alone ;  but  '  they  that 
were  in  the  ship,^  others  who  were  sailing  with  theni, 
sailors  and  passengers,''  caught  a  momentary  glimpse  of 
the  greatness  of  Him  in  whose  presence  they  stood ;  and 
'  came  and  worshipped  Him,  saying,  Of  a  truth  Thou  art  the 
Son  of  God  '(cf.  John  i.  49).  They  felt  more  or  less  clearly 
that  here  was  One  who  must  stand  in  wonderful  relation 
with  Him  of  whom  it  is  written,  '  Thy  way  is  in  the  sea, 
and  thy  path  in  the  great  waters,  and  thy  footsteps  are 
not  known'  (Ps.  Ixxvii.  19);  'Thou  didst  walk  through 
the  sea  with  thine  horses,  through  the  heap  of  great 
waters'  (Hab.  iii.  15);  'Which  alone  spreadeth  out  the 
heavens,  and  treadeth  upon  the  waves  of  the  sea '  (Job 
ix.  83). 

no  particular  anxiety  to  make  the  Evangelists  agree  togetlier,  rightly : 
Dass  ei'9i-utc  lyiviTo  tTrl  rf/i;  yT/c  als  Folge  seines  Einsteigens,  ist  wohl 
nioht  zu  hezweifeln. 

*   Kai    loSi'iytjTEV    avrovc   tTri    'Xtftevn    OeXi'niaroc   avrwv    are   the   beautiful 

words  with  which  that  which  may  be  called  an  Old  Testament  prophecy 
of  this  scene  concludes  (Ps.  cvii.  23-30). 

^  Jerome :  Nautse  atque  vectores. 

■*  'O  TTipnraTwv^  wq  Itt' eSatiov^,  inl  OaXdacrtjg,  Eusebius  (Dem.  Evang.  ix. 
I  a)  finds  a  special  fulfilment  of  these  words  in  this  miracle,  as  also  in 
these  waves  the  symbol  of  a  mightier  and  wilder  sea,  even  that  of  sin 
and  death,  which  Christ  trod  under  his  feet  when  He,  in  a  far  higher 
sense  than  that  in  which  the  words  were  first  spoken, 

.     .     .     .     metus  omnes  et  inexorabile  fatum 
Siiljecit  pedibus,  strepi turn  que  Acheron  tis  avari; 

and  he  quotes  Ps.  Ixxiv.  13,  14:  'Thou  didst  divide  the  sea  by  thy 
etreiigth.  Thou  brakest  the  heads  of  the  dragons  in  the  waters;  Thou 
brakest  the  heads  of  leviathan  in  pieces,  and  gavest  them  to  be  meat  to 
the  people  inhabiting  the  wilderness ; '  and  Job  xxxviii.  16,  17,  where 
the  Almighty  says  to  man  :  'Ilast  thou  entered  into  the  springs  of  the 


THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA.  303 

It  is  a  docetic  ^  vieAv  of  the  person  of  Christ,  which  con- 
ceives of  his  bodj  as  permanently  exempt  from  the  law  of 
gravitation,  and  in  this  way  explains  the  miracle ;  a  hard 
and  mechanical  view,  which  places  the  seat  of  the  miracle 
in  the  waters  rendered  solid  under  his  feet.     Eather  was  it 
the  will  of  Christ,  which  bore  Him  triumphantly  above  those 
waters ;  even  as  it  was  the  will  of  Peter,  that  will,  indeed, 
made  in  the  highest  degree  active  and  potential  by  faith 
on  the  Son  of  God,  which  should  in  like  manner  have 
enabled  him  to  walk  on  the  great  deep,  and,  though  with 
partial  and  transient  failure,  did  so  enable  him.     It  has 
been  already  urged^  that  the  miracle,  according  to  its  true 
idea,  is  not  the  suspension,  still  less  the  violation  of  law, 
but  the  incoming  of  a  higher  law,  as  of  a  spiritual  in  the 
midst  of  natural  laws ;  and  so  far  as  its  range  and  reach 
extend,  the  assertion  for  that  higher  law,  of  the  predomi- 
nance which  it  was  intended  to  have,  and  but  for  man's 
fall  it  would  always  have  had,  over  the  lower ;  and  with 
this  a  prophetic  anticipation  of  the  abiding  predominance 
which  it  shall  one  day  recover.     Exactly  thus  was  there 
here  a  sign  of  the  lordship  of  man's  will,  when  that  will  is 
in  absolute  harmony  with  God's  will,  over  external  nature. 
In  regard  of  this  very  law  of  gravitation,  a  feeble  remnant 
of  his  power,  and  one  for  the  most  part  unconsciously 
possessed,  survives  to  man  in  the  unquestionable  fact  that 
his  body  is  lighter  when  he  is  awake  than  sleeping ; '  a 
fact  which  every  nurse  who  has  carried  a  child  can  attest. 
From  this  we  conclude  that  the  human  consciousness,  as 
an  inner  centre,  works  as  an  opposing  force  to  the  attraction 

sea  ?  or  hast  thou  walked  in  the  search  of  the  depth  ?  Have  the  gates 
of  death  heen  opened  unto  thee,  and  hast  thou  seen  the  doors  of  the 
shadow  of  death  ? '  that  is,  *  Hast  thou  done  this,  as  I  have  done  ?  ' 

*  The  Cathari,  a  Gnostic  sect  of  the  Middle  Ages,  actually  appealed  to 
this  miracle  in  confirmation  of  their  errors  concerning  the  body  of  Christ, 
as  a  heavenly,  and  not  a  truly  human,  body  (Neander,  Kirch.  Gesch. 
vol.  V.  p.  1126). 

'^  See  pp.  17,  72. 

3  It  was  noticed  long  ago  by  Pliny,  H.N.  vii.  18. 


304  THE    WALKING   ON  THE  SEA. 

of  tlie  earth  and  tlie  centripetal  force  of  gravity,  liowever 
unable  in  tliis  present  time  to  overbear  it.^ 

^  Prudentius   (^Apotheosis,   655)  has  some  sounding  lines  upon  tliis 
miracle: 

Ipse  super  fluidas  plantis  nitentibus  unda? 
Aanbulat,  ac  presso  firmat  vestigia  fluctu ; 
Increpat  ipse  notos,  et  flatibus  otia  mandat ; 
Ninguidus  agnoscit  Boreas  atque  imbrifer  Earns 
Nimborum  dominum,  tempestatumque  potentem, 
Excitamque  liyemem  verrunt  ridente  sereno. 


iS    THE  OFENINCr  OF  THE  EYES  OF  ONE  BORN  JiLIND. 

John  ix. 

IT  is  on  the  whole  most  probable  that  this  work  of  grace 
and  power  crowned  the  day  of  that  long  debate  with 
Jewish  adversaries,  which,  beginning  at  John  vii.  34, 
reaches  to  the  end  of  chapter  x. ; — the  history  of  the 
woman  taken  in  adultery  being  only  an  interruption,  and 
an  intercalation  easily  betraying  itself  as  such.  Our  Lord 
then,  as  He  was  passing  from  the  temple,  to  escape  those 
stones  which  were  the  last  arguments  of  his  foes  (viii.  59), 
will  have  paused — probably  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 
hood of  the  temple,  where  beggars,  cripples,  and  other 
afflicted  persons  took  their  station  (Acts  iii.  i,  2),  to 
accomplish  this  miracle.  Nothing  in  the  narrative  in- 
dicates a  break.  That  long  '  contradiction  of  sinners ' 
which  the  Lord  endured  found  place,  we  know,  on  a 
Sabbath,  for  the  last  day  of  the  feast  of  tabernacles  (vii.  37) 
was  always  such ;  and  on  a  Sabbath,  to  all  appearance  the 
same  Sabbath,  He  opened  this  blind  man's  eyes  (ix.  14). 
Moved  by  these  reasons,  the  ancient  interpreters  see  here 
a  narrative  continuous  and  unbroken,  and  with  them  most 
of  the  modern  consent.* 

It  has  been  by  some  objected,  that,  first  concealing 
Himself,  and  then  escaping  for  his  life,  He  must  have  left 
the  temple  alone  ;  here,  on  the  contrary,  his  disciples  are 
with  Him.  But  what  more  natural  than  that  they  also 
should  have  extricated  themselves,  though  not  in  the  same 
wonderful   manner   as   He  did,  from  the  tumult  of  "(he 

'  As  Maldonatus,  Tittmann,  Tholucli,  OlHliausen. 


306  THE  OPENING   OF  THE  EYES 

people,  and  have  rejoined  their  Master  without  ?  If  it  be 
further  urged  that  this  work  was  wrought  in  a  more 
leisurely  manner,  with  more  apparent  freedom  from  all 
fear  of  interruption  than  could  well  have  been,  had  He 
only  just  withdrawn  from  the  extreme  malice  of  his  foes, 
we  may  rather  accept  this  circumstance  as  a  beautiful 
evidence  of  his  fearless  walk  in  the  midst  of  his  foes  ;  so 
that  not  even  such  a  time  as  this,  when  He  had  hardly 
escaped  the  Jewish  stones,  seemed  to  Him  unfitted  for  a 
task  of  mercy  and  love.  And  may  not  something  of  all 
this  lie  in  ver.  4,  5  ?  'I  must  work  this  work  now, 
however  out  of  season  it  may  seem  :  for  "  the  night,^'  which 
my  enemies  are  bringing  on,  is  near,  and  then  the  oppor- 
tunity for  working  will  be  over ; '  with  which  words  we 
may  compare  the  exactly  parallel  passage,  John  xi.  7-10. 

Some  have  made  a  difficulty,  How  could  the  disciples 
know  of  this  man  that  he  '  was  blind  from  his  birth '  ? '  He 
was  evidently  a  well-known  beggar  in  Jerusalem,  with 
whose  tale  many  were  acquainted  (ver.  8) ;  he  may  further 
have  himself  proclaimed  his  lifelong  calamity,  with  the 
object  of  stirring  pity  in  the  passers  by.  One  way  or 
other  the  fact  had  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  disciples, 
and  out  of  it  their  question  grew.  Perplexed  at  this  more 
than  ordinary  calamity,  they  ask  their  Master  to  explain 
to  them  its  cause  :  '  Who  did  sin,  this  man,  or  his  parents, 
that  he  was  born  blind  ?  '  But  what  they  could  have  had 
in  their  minds  when  they  suggested  the  former  alternative, 
how  they  could  have  supposed  it  possible  that  for  his  own 
sins  the  man  had  been  born  blind,  has  naturally  enough 
been  often  demanded. 

Three  or  four  explanations  have  been  offered  :  the  firfjt, 
that  the  Jews  believed  in  a  transmigration  of  souls ;  and 
thus  that  the  sins  which  the  disciples  assumed  as  possible 
causes  of  his  blindness,  were  those  of  some  anterior  life, — 

'  'Ek  y{vfTr/c=t/c  KotX/«c  unrpoc,  Acta  iii,  2 ;  xiv.  8.  There,  ae  liere,  a 
lifelong  defect  is  removed. 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  307 

antenatal  sins,  wliicli  were  being  pnnislied  and  exj)iated 
now.  Tliis,  as  is  well  known,  is  tlie  doctrine  of  the 
Buddhists ;  and  is  woven  into  the  very  heart  of  their 
religious  system :  but  it  cannot  be  proved  that  there  was 
any  such  belief  among  the  Jews.  It  may  have  been  the 
dream  of  a  few  philosophic  Jews,  who  had  obtained  some 
acquaintance  with  the  speculations  of  the  East,  but  was 
never  the  faith  of  plain  and  simple  men.  This  explanation 
therefore  may  be  regarded  as  altogether  antiquated,  and 
not  worthy  even  to  be  considered.' 

Lightfoot  adduces  passages  to  show  that  the  Jews  be- 
lieved a  child  might  sin  in  its  mother's  womb,  in  proof  of 
which  their  Rabbis  referred  to  the  struggle  between  Jacob 
and  Esau  (Gen.  xxv.  22);  and  he,  and  others  after  him, 
think  that  out  of  this  popular  belief  the  question  of  the 
disciples  grew. 

Tholuck,  following  an  earlier  interpreter,  supposes  their 
notion  to  have  been  that  God  had  forekno"\vn  some  great 
sin  which  this  man  would  commit,  and  so  by  anticipation 
had  punished  him.  But  as  such  a  dealing  on  God's  part 
is  altogether  without  analogy  in  Scripture,  so  is  there  not 
the  slightest  hint  that  men  had  ever  fallen  on  it  as  an  ex- 
planation of  the  suffering  in  the  world ;  nor,  indeed,  could 
they :  for  while  the  idea  of  retribution  is  one  ot  the  deep- 
est in  the  human  heart,  this  of  punishment  running  before 
the  crime  which  it  punishes,  is  one  from  which  it  as  wholly 
revolts. 

Chrysostom  imagines  that  it  was  upon  their  part  a  re- 
ductio  ad  ahsurdum  of  the  argument  which  connected  sin 
and  suffering  together.  The  man  could  not  have  brought 
this  penalty  on  himself;  for  he  was  born  with  it.  His 
parents  could  not  by  their  sin  have  brought  it  on  him ;  for 
we  know  that  each  man  shall  bear  his  own  burden,  that 
the  children's  teeth  are  not  set  on  edge  because  the  parents 

^  The  passag'es  from  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  (vili.  19,  20)  and  Joscphus 
(Jj.  J.  ii.  8,  14)  are  misunderstood,  \^'hen  applied  in  this  sense. 


308  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES 

ate  sour  grapes.  But  this  is  very  artificial,  aud  witli  little 
of  likelihood  in  it.  Honest  and  simple-hearted  men,  like 
those  who  asked  the  question  here,  would  have  been 
the  last  to  try  and  escape  a  truth,  to  which  the  deepest 
things  in  their  own  hearts  bore  witness,  by  an  ingenious 
dilemma. 

Rather,  I  believe  they  did  not  see,  at  the  moment  when 
they  put  the  question,  the  self-contradiction,  so  far  at  least 
as  words  go,  which  was  involved  in  the  first  alternative 
which  they  put  before  their  Lord ;  so  that,  while  they 
rightly,  and  by  a  most  true  moral  instinct,  discerned  the 
intimate  connexion  in  which  the  sin  and  sufi'ering  of  the 
world  stand  to  one  another,  yet  in  this  case  they  did  not 
realize  how  it  must  have  been  the  sin  and  sufi'ering,  not  of 
this  individual  man,  but  of  him  as  making  part  of  a  great 
whole,  which  were  thus  connected  together.  They  did  not 
at  the  moment  perceive  that  the  mere  fact  of  this  calamity 
reaching  back  to  his  birth  at  once  excluded  and  condemned 
the  uncharitable  suspicion,  that  wherever  there  was  a  more 
than  ordinary  sufferer,  there  was  also  a  more  than  ordinary 
sinner, — leaving  only  the  most  true  thought,  that  a  great 
sin  must  be  cleaving  to  a  race,  of  which  any  member  could 
so  greatly  suffer. 

This,  as  it  is  continually  affirmed  in  Scripture,  so  we  can- 
not suppose  that  our  Lord  intended  to  deny  it.  His  words, 
^Neither  hath  this  man  sinned,  nor  his  parents,' — words 
which  need  for  their  completion — *  that  he  should  have 
been  born  blind,'  neither  deny  the  man's  own  sin  nor  that  of 
his  parents ;  and  as  little  that  sicknesses  are  oftentimes 
the  punishment  of  sins  (Deut.  xxviii.  22;  Lev.  xxvi.  16; 
I  Cor.  xi.  30) ;  or  that  the  sins  of  parents  are  often  visited 
on  their  children  (Exod.  xx.  5).  All  that  He  does  is  to 
check  in  his  disciples  that  most  harmful  practice  of  diving 
down  with  cruel  surmises  into  the  secrets  of  other  men's 
lives,  and,  like  the  friends  of  Job,  ascribing  to  them  great, 
though  it  might  be  from  men  concealed  transgressions,  in 


OF   ONE  BORN  BLIND.  309 

explanation  of  their  unusnal  suiferings  (Job.  iv.  7  ;  viii.  6). 
This  blindness,  He  would  say,  is  the  chastening  of  no 
peculiar  sin  on  his  own  part,  nor  on  his  parents'.  Seek, 
therefore,  its  cause  neither  here  nor  there ;  but  see  what 
nobler  explanation  the  evil  in  the  world,  and  this  evil  in 
particular,  is  capable  of  receiving.  The  purpose  of  the 
lifelong  blindness  of  this  man  is  '  that  the  ivorhs  of  God 
should  he  made  manifest  in  him. ; '  that  through  it  and  its 
removal  the  grace  and  glorj  of  God  might  be  magnified. 
Not,  indeed,  as  though  this  man  had  been  used  merely  as 
a  means,  visited  with  this  blindness  to  the  end  that  the 
power  of  God  in  Christ  might  be  manifested  to  others  in 
its  removal.'  The  manifestation  of  the  works  of  God  has 
here  a  wider  reach,  and  embraces  in  it  the  lasting  weal  of 
the  man  himself;  it  includes,  indeed,  the  manifestation  of 
those  works  to  the  Avorld  and  on  the  man  ;  but  it  does  not 
exclude,  rather  of  necessity  includes,  their  manifestation 
also  to  him  and  in  him.  It  entered  into  the  plan  of  God 
for  the  bringing  of  this  man  to  the  light  of  everlasting 
life,  that  he  should  thus  for  a  while  be  dark  outwardly ; 
that  so  at  once  upon  this  night,  and  upon  the  night  of  his 
heart,  a  higher  light  might  break,  and  the  Sun  of  right- 
eousness arise  on  him,  with  healing  in  his  wings  for  all  his 
bodily  and  all  his  s]Diritual  infirmities ;  which,  but  for  that 
long  night  of  darkness  and  sorrow,  might  have  never  been  : 
while  again  this  was  part  of  a  larger  whole,  and  fitted  in, 
according  to  his  eternal  counsels,  to  the  great  scheme  for 
the  revelation  of  the  glory  and  power  of  the  Only-be- 
gotten to  the  world  (cf.  John  xi.  4 ;  Eom.  v.  20 ;  ix.  17; 
xi.  25,  32,  33).2 

Yet,  while  it  was  thus,  we  are  not  to  accept  this  as  the 
entire  and  exhaustive  solution  of  this  man's  blindness.  For 
it  is  the  pantheistic  explanation  of  evil,  that  it  is  not  really 

'  Leo  the  Great  {Scrm.  45)  :  Quod  principiis  natuios  non  dederat,  ad 
manifestationem  suae  o-loriae  reservarat. 

*  Compare  Jeremy  Taylor,  Life  of  Chrid,  part  3,  sect.  14  j  disc.  18. 


310  THE    OPENING   OF  THE  EYES 

evil,  but  only  the  condition  of,  and  the  transition  to,  a 
higher  good ;  only  appearing,  indeed,  as  evil  at  all  from  a 
low  standing  point,  and  one  which  not  as  yet  beholds  the 
end.  But  this  explanation  of  the  world's  evil,  tempting 
as  it  has  ever  shown  itself,  so  tempting  that  multitudes 
have  been  unable  to  resist  its  attraction,  is  not  that  which 
the  Scriptures  offer.  They  ever  recognize  the  reality  of 
evil ;  and  this,  even  while  that  evil,  through  the  boundless 
resources  of  the  Divine  love,  magnifies  more  the  glory  of 
the  Creator,  and  ultimately  exalts  higher  the  blessedness 
of  the  creature.  This  cannot,  then,  be  the  whole  explana- 
tion of  the  blindness  which  this  man  had  brought  with  him 
into  the  world ;  but  God,  who  though  not  the  author,  is 
yet  the  disposer,  of  evil, — who  distributes  that  which  He 
did  not  Himself  bring  in,  and  distributes  it  according  to 
the  counsels  of  his  wisdom  and  righteousness  and  grace, 
had  willed  that  on  this  man  should  be  concentrated  more 
than  the  ordinary  penalties  of  the  world's  universal  sin, 
that  a  more  than  ordinary  grace  and  glory  might  be  ro 
vealed  in  their  removing. 

With  this  the  Lord  girds  up  Himself  to  the  work  which 
is  before  Him,  and  justifies  Himself  in  undei'taking  it :  *  J 
vnust  work  the  worJcs  of  Him  that  sent  Me,^  while  it  is  day  ; 
the  night  cometh,  when  no  man  can  work'  (cf.  xi.  9,  10). 
Whatever  perils  attended  that  work,  yet  it  must  be  accom- 
plished ;  for  his  time,  '  the  day  '  of  his  open  activity,  of 
his  walking  up  and  down  among  the  people,  and  doing 
them  good,  was  drawing  to  an  end.  *  The  nightj*  when 
He  should  no  longer  lighten  the  world  with  his  presence, 
nor  have  the  opportunity  of  doing,  with  his  own  hands  at 
least,  works  like  these,  was  approaching.  He  worked  in 
the  day,  and  was  Himself  the  light  of  the  day.  The  image 
is  borrowed  from  our  common  day  and  our  common  night, 
of  which  the  first  is  the  time  appointed  for  labour,  *  man 

*  Tins  was  a  favourite  passage  with  the  Arians;  see  Augustine,  Serm. 
cxxxv.  1-4,  and  his  answer  there  to  their  abusive  interpretation. 


OF   ONE  BORN  BLIND.  311 

goeth  forth  to  liis  work  until  the  evening '  (Ps.  civ.  23) ; 
while  the  latter,  by  its  darkness,  opposes  to  many  kinds 
of  labour  obstacles  insurmountable.  The  difficulty  which 
Olshausen  finds  in  the  words,  *  when  no  man  can  work^  in- 
asmuch as,  however  Christ  was  Himself  withdrawn  from 
the  earth,  yet  his  disciples  did  effectually  work,*  rises 
solely  from  his  missing  the  point  of  the  proverbial  phrase. 
Our  Lord  does  not  affirm  '  The  night  cometh,  in  which  no 
other  man  can  work ;  in  which  no  work  can  be  done ; '  but 
only,  in  the  language  of  a  familiar  proverb  which  is  as 
true  for  the  heavenly  kingdom  as  for  this  present  world, 
'  No  man  who  has  not  done  his  work  in  the  day,  can  do  it 
in  the  night ;  for  him  the  time  cometh  in  which  he  cannot 
work ; '  and  He  does  not  exclude  even  Himself  from  this 
law.^  And  then,  with  prophetic  allusion  to  the  work  be- 
fore Him,  ^As  long  as  I  am  in  the  world,  I  am  the  light  of  the 
world ;  what  work  then  will  become  Me  better  than  this  of 
opening  the  blind  eyes  ?  where  should  I  find  so  fit  a  sym- 
bol of  my  greater  spiritual  work,  the  restoring  of  the 
darkened  spiritual  vision  of  mankind  ?  ' ' 

And  now  He  who  at  the  old  creation  had  said,  Let  there 
be  light  and  there  was  light  (Gen.  i.  3),  will  in  this,  a  little 
fragmentary  specimen  of  the  new  creation,  display  the 
same  almighty  power.  *  WJien  He  had  thus  spoJien,  He  spat 
on  the  ground,  and  made  clay  of  the  spittle,  and  He  anointed  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  man  with  the  clay.''  A  medicinal  value  was 
attributed  in  old  time  to  saliva,  above  all  for  disorders  in 

*  The  same  difficulty  strikes  Augustine :  Numquid  nox  erat,  quando 
claudus  ille  ad  verbum  Petri  salvus  effectus  est,  imiuo  ad  verbum  Domini 
laabitantis  in  Petro  ?  Numquid  nox  erat,  quando  transeuntibus  disci- 
pulis  ppgri  cum  lectulis  ponebantur,  ut  vel  umbra,  transeuntium  tange- 
rentur  ? 

^  The  power  of  triviality  can  reach  no  further  than  it  has  reached  in 
the  exposition  of  Paulus.  Christ  is  for  him  no  more  than  a  skilful  oculist, 
who  says,  '  I  must  take  this  cure  in  hand  while  there  is  yet  daylight  to 
Bee;  for  when  it  is  dark  I  could  not  attempt  so  fine  and  delicate  an 
operation.' 

*  So  Cyril :  'M-ti-tp  aipiyfxai  ^wn'ffwj'  Tu  IV  ivctt<f.  (^UTOQ,  Cti  fit  Kai  vol; 
Tov  awfiaTut;  to  <J>'i£  iHTaiovrni, 


312  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES 

the  eyes ;  '  it  is  similarly  used  in  tlie  case  of  anotlier 
blind  man  (Mark  viii.  23),  and  of  one  suffering  from  a 
defect  in  the  organs  of  speech  and  hearing  (Mark  vii.  33)  ; 
neither  are  we  altogether  without  examples  of  a  medicinal 
use  of  clay.*  Still  we  must  not  suppose  that,  besides  his 
divine  power,  the  Lord  also  used  natural  remedies,  or  that 
these  were  more  than  conductors,  not  in  themselves 
needful,  but  such  as  of  his  own  free  will  He  assumed,  as 
channels  to  convey  his  grace  (cf.  2  Kin.  iv.  41  ;  Isai. 
xxxviii.  21)  ;  for  other  blind  eyes  He  opened  without  em- 
ploying any  such  means  (Matt.  xx.  30-34).  Probably  the 
reasons  which  indue  edtheir  use  were  ethical.  It  may  have 
been  a  heli3  to  the  weak  faith  of  this  man  to  find  that 
something  external  was  done.  Nor  may  we  leave  out  of 
sight  a  symbolic  reference  to  Gen.  ii.  7.  The  same  creative 
hand  which  wrought  at  the  beginning  is  again  at  work.^ 

^  Pliuy  (IL  N.  xxviii.  7)  says,  Lippitiidines  matutina  quotidie  velut 
inunctione  arceri.  lu  both  accounts  (Suetonius,  Vespas.  7 ;  Tacitus, 
Hist.  iv.  8)  of  that  restoring  of  a  blind  man  to  sight,  attributed  to  Vespa- 
sian, the  use  of  this  remedy  occurs.  In  the  latter  the  man  begs  of  the 
emperor,  ut  genas  et  oculorum  orbes  dignaretur  respergere  oris  excre- 
raento  5  and  abundant  quotations  to  the  same  effect  are  to  be  found  in 
Wetstein  (in  loc). 

^  Thus  Serenus  Samouicus,  a  physician  in  the  time  of  Caracalla : 

Si  tumor  insolitus  typho  se  toUat  inani, 
Turgentes  oculos  vili  circumline  coeno. 

In  this  healing  by  clay,  being  as  it  is  that  very  thing  which  (in  the  shape 
of  dust)  most  often  afflicts  and  wounds  the  eyes,  Augustine  {In  Ev.  Joh. 
tract,  ii.)  finds  a  striking  analogy  with  the  healing  of  flesh  through  flesh, 
our  flesh  through  Christ's  flesh  :  Gloriam  ejus  nemo  posset  videre,  nisi 
carnis  humilitate  sanaretur.  Unde  non  poteramus  videre  .'^  Irruerat 
homini  quasi  pulvis  in  oculuni,  irruerat  terra,  sauciaverat  oculum,  videre 
non  poterat  lucem :  oculus  ille  sauciatus  inunguitur ;  terra  sauciatus  erat, 
et  terra  illuc  mittitur,  ut  sanetur.  .  .  .  De  pulvere  cfficatus  es,  de  pulvere 
eanaris :  ergo  caro  te  csecaverat,  caro  te  sanat. 

3  Irenreus  has  here  one  of  his  profound  observations.  Having  referred 
to  ver.  3,  '  that  the  works  of  God  should  be  made  manifest  in  him,'  he 
goes  on  to  say  (v.  15):  Scriptura  ait,  Sumsit  Deus  limum  de  terra,  et 
plasmavit  hominem.  Quapropter  et  Dominus  exspuit  in  terram,  et  fecit 
lutuni,  et  superlinivit  illud  oculis ;  ostendens  antiquam  plasmationem 
quemadmodum  facta  est,  et  manum  Dei  manifestans  his  qui  intelligero 
possint,   per  quam  e  limo  plasmatus  est  homo.     Compare  Prudentius 


OF  ONE  BOBN  BLIND.  3^3 

The  command,  '  Go,  wash  in  the  pool  of  Siloam,^  was 
certainly  something  more  than  a  mere  test  of  obedience. 
Was  the  cure  itself  to  result,  altogether,  or  in  part,  from 
that  washing  ?  Or  was  the  tempered  clay  the  sole  agent 
of  healing,  and  the  washing  merely  designed  to  remove 
the  hindrances  which  the  remedy  itself,  if  suffered  to 
remain,  would  have  opposed  even  to  the  restored  organs  of 
vision?  Our  answer  to  these  questions  must  in  good 
part  depend  on  the  answer  we  give  to  another — this 
namely.  Did  St.  John  see  anything  significant  and  mystical 
in  the  name  of  the  pool,  that  he  should  add  for  his  Greek 
readers  an  interpretation  of  it,  'which is  hy  interpretation, 
Sent '  ?  Did  he  trace  any  symbolic  meaning  in  Christ's 
sending  of  the  man  to  a  pool  bearing  such  a  name  ?  If  so, 
one  can  scarcely  doubt  that  it  was  his  intention  to  connect 
the  actual  cure  with  the  washing  in  that  pool.  But  how 
can  we  suppose  that  St.  John  did  not  see  a  prophetic 
significance  in  the  name  '  Siloam,^  or  that,  except  for  this, 
he  would  have  paused  to  insert  in  his  narrative  the  deriva- 
tion of  the  word  ?  (cf.  i.  38,  42) ;  which,  proper  enough  in 
a  lexicon,  would  have  been  quite  out  of  place  in  a  gospel. 
Those  who  admit  this  much,  yet  differ  among  themselves 
as  to  what  the  exact  allusion  may  be.  Olshausen  cannot 
find  in  *  Sent '  a  reference  to  Christ  Himself,  seeing  that 
He  was  not  upon  this  occasion  the  *  Sent,'  but  the  Sender. 
There  seems  to  me  no  force  in  the  objection.  Christ, 
the  Sender  indeed  in  this  particular  instance,  was  the  Sent 
of  God,  when  we  contemplate  his  work  as  a  whole  ;'  so  He 

(Apotheosis,  689),  -wlio  gives  the  same  reason  for  the  employment  of  the 

clay: 

Norat  enim  linio  sese  informasse  figuram 
Ante  tenebrosam,  proprii  medicamen  et  oris 
Adjecisse  novo,  quern  primum  finxerat,  Ada; ; 
Nam  sine  divino  Domini  perflamine  summi 
Arida  terra  fuit,  nulli  prius  apta  medelse. 

*  Augustine  {Senn.  cxxxv.  i):  Quis  est  ipse  Missus,  nisi  qui  dixit  in 
ipsa  lectione,  Ego,  inquit,  veni  ut  fiiciam  opera  ejus  qui  misit  me ;  and  In 
Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xliv.:  Misit  ilium  ad  piscinam  qiice  vocatur  Siloe.  Per- 
tinuit  autem  ad  Evangeiistam  commendare  nobis  nomen  hujus  piscinse. 


314  THE   OPENING   OF   THE  EYES 

ever  contemplated  it  Himself  (John  iii.  17,  34  ;  v.  36,  38  ; 
vii.  29  ;  viii.  42)  ;  bearing  therefore  this  very  title,  '  the 
Apostle^  of  our  profession  '  (Heb.  iii.  i).  These  waters  of 
Siloam,  in  which  the  blind  man  washed  and  was  illumi- 
nated, may  well  hare  been  to  St.  John  a  type  of  the  waters 
of  baptism  (cf.  i  Pet.  iii.  21),  or  indeed  of  all  the  opera- 
tions of  grace  by  which  the  eyes  spiritually  blind  are 
opened ;  the  very  name  of  the  pool  having  therefore  for 
him  a  presaging  fitness,  which  by  this  notice  he  would 
indicate  as  more  than  accidental.* 

The  man  is  no  Naaman,  resenting  the  simplicity  of  the 
means  by  which  his  cure  should  be  effected,  and  hardly 
persuaded  to  be  healed  (2  Kin.  v.  11,  13).  He  at  once 
fulfilled  the  conditions  imposed :  '  he  went  his  way  there- 
fore, and  washed,  and  came  seeing ; '  returned,  as  it  seems, 
to  his  own  house  ;  it  does  not  appear  that  he  came  back  to 
the  Lord.  His  neighbours  and  those  who  were  familiar 
with  the  former  mode  of  his  life  are  the  first  who  take  note 
of  the  cure  which  has  been  wrought; — well-disposed 
persons,  as  would  appear,  but  altogether  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Pharisees.  They  wonder,  debate  whether  it  be 
indeed  he  whom  they  had  known  so  long ;  for  the  opening 
of  the  eyes,  those  windows  of  the  soul,  had  no  doubt  altered 
the  whole  character  of  the  countenance.^  'Some  said, 
This  is  he  ;  others  said.  He  is  like  him ; '  these  last  denying 
the  identity,  and   allowing  only  a  fortuitous  resemblance ; 

et  ait,  Quod  interpretatur  Missus.  Jam  quis  sit  Missus  agnoscitis :  nisi 
enim  ille  fuisset  missus,  nemo  nostrum  esset  ab  iniquitate  dimissus.  So 
Chrysostom,  Horn.  Ivii.  in  Joh.;  and  Basil  the  Great :  TIq  ohv  !>  cnrirtraX- 
Htvot;  Kal  ci\l/o'lTjr\  piiiir,  >)  TTtp'i  ov  i'lprjratf  Kvpiog  arrtaraXici  pi'  Kal  irciXtf,  ovk 
ipii^fi  ovSi  Kpnvyi'irrn. 

*  'AnoariAiK,  as  compared  "with  cnrtnTaXplvoQ  here. 

'  Bengel:  Noraen  huic  loco  inditum  pridem,  quia  Jesus  Christus  eo 
missurus  erat  caecum.  Compare  Tholuck,  Beitrage  zur  Spracherkldning  des 
Neuen  Testaments,  p.  1 2 3 .  The  pool  of  Siloam,  which  received  the  waters  of 
the  fountain  of  the  same  name,  is  often  mentioned  by  Josephus ;  and  twice 
in  the  Old  Testament,  '  the  waters  of  Siloah '  (Isai.  viii.  6),  *  the  pool  of 
Siloah  '  (Nehem.  iii.  1 5).  See  the  admirable  article,  Siloam^  in  the  Did. 
oftheBille. 

^  Augustine :  Aperti  oculi  vultum  mutaverant 


^  OF  ONE   BORN  BLIND.  315 

and  so  tlie  debate  proceeded,  until  the  man  himself  cut  it 
short,  and  '  said,  I  am  he.'  They  would  fain  learn  how  he 
had  recovered  his  sight ; '  and  having  heard  from  his  lips 
of  the  wonder-worker  who  had  wrought  the  cure,  and  by 
what  means  He  had  wrought  it,  they  desire  to  see  Him, 
and  demand  where  He  will  be  found.  The  man  is  unable 
to  tell  them.  In  the  end,  as  the  safest  course,  and  per- 
haps having  some  misgivings  about  a  work  wrought  upon 
the  Sabbath,  they  bring  him,  although  with  no  evil  dis- 
positions either  towards  hitn  or  towards  Christ,  to  their 
spiritual  rulers, — not,  that  is,  before  the  great  Sanhedrim, 
for  that  Avas  not  always  sitting,  but  the  lesser, — '  to  the 
Pharisees.'  The  Sanhedrim,  it  is  true,  did  not  exclusively 
consist  of  these  (for  Caiaphas  was  a  Sadducee,  and  see 
Acts  xxiii.  6),  but  these  were  the  most  numerous  and 
influential  party  there,  and  the  bitterest  enemies  of  the 
Lord. 

More  formally  examined  by  them,  the  man  can  only 
repeat  his  simple  tale:  'He  put  clay  upon  mine  eyes,  and  I 
washed,  and  do  see.'  Yerj  characteristically  he  speaks  of 
the  clay  only,  for  that  only  came  within  the  scope  of  his 
knowledge,  who  judged  by  the  feeling  alone  ;  how  the  clay 
had  been  tempered  he  was  ignorant.  Already  there  is  a 
certain  curtness  in  his  reply,  reduced  as  it  is  to  the  fewest 
possible  words,  as  contrasted  with  the  greater  particularity 
of  his  first  explanation  (seever.  11).  And  now  the  Phari- 
sees discuss  the  matter  among  themselves.  Some  seek  to 
rob  the  deed  of  its  significance  by  a  charge  against  the 
doer :  '  This  man  is  not  of  God,  because  He  keepeth  not  the 
Sahhath  day.'  Granting  then  its  reality,  it  proved  nothing 
in  favour  of  Him  that  wrought  it;  rather  was  it  to  be 
inferred,  since  He  was  thus  an  evident  transgressor  of 
God's  commandment,  that  He  was  in  connexion  with  the 
powers  of  evil.     No  lighter  charge  than  that  which  they 

*  As  much  is  implied  in  the  ay's-ftX'xpa  of  ver.  11,  on  which  Bengel 
wtU :    Autea  non  habuerat  videndi  facultatem ;   sed  ea  tameu  homiiii 
naturalis  est ;  ideo  dicit,  liecepi  visum. 
21 


3i6  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES 

made  at  another  time,  when  they  said,  *  He  casteth  out 
devUs  through  the  prince  of  the  devils'  (Matt.  ix.  34),  was 
involved  in  this  word  of  theirs. 

But  there  was  throughout  all  these  events,  which  were 
so  disastrously  fixing  the  fortunes  of  the  Jewisli  people, 
an  honester  and  better  party  in  the  Sanhedrim,  of  which 
Nicodemus  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea  were  the  noblest 
representatives ;  men  like  the  Poles  and  Contarinis  at 
another  great  epoch  of  the  Church ;  not  in  number, 
perhaps  still  less  in  courage,  equal  to  the  stemming  of  the 
fierce  tide  of  hostility  which  was  rising  against  the  truth, 
— a  tide  which  probably  in  the  end  drew  most  even  of 
them  into  its  current  (cf.  John  xii.  42,  43) ;  only  here  and 
there  one  and  another,  such  as  those  above  named,  extri- 
cating themselves  from  it.  These  from  time  to  time  made 
their  voices  to  be  heard  in  the  cause  of  righteousness  and 
truth.  Thus,  on  the  present  occasion,  they  claim  that  He 
should  not  at  once  be  prejudged  a  sinner  and  a  breaker  of 
God's  law,  who  had  done  such  miracles  as  these  (cf.  x. 
19-21).  Even  their  own  Doctors  were  not  altogether  at 
one  concerning  what  was  permitted  on  the  Sabbath,  and 
what  not ;  some  allowing  quite  as  much  as  this  which 
Christ  had  done  and  more,  for  only  the  alleviation  of 
disorders  in  the  eyes.  They  could  therefore  plead  that 
the  Spirit  of  God  might  well  have  directed  Him  in  this 
that  He  did,  and  they  ask,  ^How  can  a  man  that  is  a  sinner 
do  such  miracles  ?'  Yet  the  shape  which  their  interference 
takes,  the  form  of  a  question  in  which  it  clothes  itself, 
betrays,  as  Chrysostom  remarks,  the  timidity  of  men, 
who  do  not  dare  more  than  to  hint  their  convictions. 
No  wonder  that  they  should  be  in  the  end  overborne  and 
silenced  by  their  more  unscrupulous  adversaries,  even  as 
now  they  prove  unequal  to  the  obtaining  of  a  fair  and  im- 
partial hearing  of  the  matter. 

The  interrogation  in  the  verse  following,  '  What  sayest 
thou  of  Him,  that  He  hath  opened  thine  eyes  ? '  has  been  frf,- 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  317 

^uently,  bat  wrong-ly,  understood,  not  as  one  question,  but 
as  two.  The  mistake  is  a  yery  old  one,  for  ITieodore  of 
Mopsuestia  finds  fault  witli  them  who  divide  the  question 
here  into  two  clauses,  as  thus — *  What  say  est  thou  of  Him? 
That  He  hath  opened  thine  eyes  ?'  making  the  second  clause 
to  have  its  rise  in  the  doubts  which  the  Pharisees  felt,  or 
pretended  to  feel,  concerning  the  reality  of  the  miracle. 
In  truth  there  is  but  one  question,  *  What  sayest  thou  of 
Him,  because^  He  hath  oldened  thine  eyes?  what  conclusion 
drawest  thou  from  thence  ? '  The  answer  is  then  to  the 
point,  *  He  said,  He  is  a  prophet;'^ — not  yet  the  Messiah, 
not  yet  the  Son  of  God  ;  of  these  higher  dignities  of  his 
benefactor  the  man  as  yet  has  no  guess ;  but  what  he 
believos  Him  he  boldly  declares  Him,  *  a  prophet,' — one 
furnished  with  a  message  from  above,  and  attesting  that 
message  by  deeds  which  no  man  could  do,  except  God 
were  with  him  (John  iii.  2;  iv.  19;  vi.  14).  They  who 
asked  this,  cared  not  in  the  least  for  the  judgment  of  the 
man,  but  they  hoped  to  mould  him  into  an  instrument  for 
their  own  wicked  purposes.  Chrysostom  indeed,  whom 
others  follow,  understands  this  'What  sayest  thou  of  Him?* 
as  the  speech  of  the  better-disposed  in  the  Sanhedrim,  who 
hope  that  the  testimony  of  the  man  himself  may  go  for 
something ;  but  this  is  little  probable.  Rather  the  drift 
of  the  question  is  that  he,  perceiving  what  would  be  wel- 
come to  them,  and  following  the  suggestions  which  they 
had  thrown  out,  should  turn  against  his  benefactor,  and 
ascribe  the  opening  of  his  eyes  to  the  power  of  an  evil 
magic.  But  a  rare  courage  from  above  is  given  to  him, 
and  he  dares,  in  the  face  of  these  formidable  men  whom 
he  is  making  his  foes,  to  avouch  his  belief  that  the  work 
and  the  doer  of  the  work  were  of  God. 

'      ()ri=  VTTIO   Ull'. 

^  Our  Version  no  doubt  in  general  conveys  to  the  EngHsli  reader  tlie 
wrong  impression.  Yet  the  manner  of  pointing,  with  the  absence  of  the 
second  note  of  interrogation,  shows  that  the  Translators  had  rightly  ap- 
prehended the  passage. 


3i8  THE   OPENING  OF  THE  EYES 

The  inquisitors  now  summon  his  parents,  hoping  to 
tamper  more  successfully  with  them,  to  win  a  lie  from  them, 
a  declaration  that  their  son  had  not  been  born  blind.  But 
they  prosper  no  better  in  this  quarter.  His  parents  reply 
as  those  who  will  not  be  made  accomplices  in  a  fraud,  though 
with  no  very  high  desire  to  witness  or  to  suffer  for  the  truth. 
Nay,  there  is  something  selfish,  and  almost  cowardly,  in 
their  manner  of  extricating  themselves  from  a  danger  in 
which  they  are  content  to  leave  their  son.  The  questions  put 
to  them  are  three :  'is  this  your  son? ' — '  Who  ye  say  was  horn 
blind  ? ' — '  How  then  doth  he  now  see  ? '  The  first  two  they 
answer  in  the  affirmative  :  '  This  is  our  son  ' — '  He  was 
horn  blind  ' — the  third  they  altogether  decline — '  By  what 
msans  he  now  seeth,  we  hioiu  not;  or  wlio  hath  opened  his 
eyes,  we  Jcnow  not:  he  is  of  age;  ask  him:  he  shall  speaTcfor 
himself.'  They  could  not  have  told  the  truth  without 
saying  something  to  the  honour  of  Jesus ;  and  they  will 
not  do  this,  fearing  to  come  under  the  penalties  which  the 
Sanhedrim  had  lately  pronounced  against  any  that  should 
'  confess  that  He  was  Christ.'  We  are  not  to  understand  by 
this  that  the  Sanhedrim  had  formally  declared  Jesus  to  be 
an  impostor,  a  false  Christ,  but  only  that,  so  long  as  the 
question  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  his  claims  to  be  the 
Messiah  was  not  yet  clear, — and  they,  the  great  religious 
tribunal  of  the  nation,  had  not  given  their  decision, — none 
were  to  anticipate  that  decision ;  and  any  who  should  thus 
run  before,  or,  as  it  might  prove,  run  counter  to,  their 
decision,  '  should  be  put  out  of  the  synagogue,' — that  is, 
should  be  excommunicated.  There  were  two,  or  as  some 
say  three,  kinds  of  excommunication  among  the  Jews, 
greatly  differing  in  degrees  and  intensity;  and  Christ  often 
speaks  of  them,  as  among  the  sharpest  trials  which  his 
followers  would  have  to  endure  for  his  name's  sake  (.John 
xvi.  2).  The  mildest  form  was  exclusion  for  thirty  days 
from  the  synagogue.  To  this  period,  in  case  the  excom- 
municated showed  no  sign  of  repentance,  a  similar  or  a 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  319 

longer  period,  according  to  the  will  of  those  that  imposed 
the  sentence,  was  added :  in  other  ways  too  it  was  made 
sharper ;  it  was  accompanied  with  a  curse ;  none  might 
hold  communion  with  him  now,  not  even  his  family, 
except  in  cases  of  absolute  necessity.  Did  the  offender 
show  himself  obstinate  still,  he  was  in  the  end  absolutely 
separated  from  the  fellowship  of  the  people  of  God,  cut  off 
from  the  congregation, — a  sentence  answering,  as  many 
suppose,  to  the  delivering  to  Satan  in  the  apostolic  Church' 
(i  Cor.  V.  5;  I  Tim.  i.  20). 

The  man  had  been  removed,  while  his  parents  were  ex- 
amined. The  Pharisees  now  summon  him  again,  and  evi- 
dently would  have  him  to  believe  that  they  had  gotten  to 
the  bottom  of  all ;  that  others  had  confessed,  that  for  him 
therefore  to  stand  out  any  longer  in  denial  was  idle,  and 
would  only  make  matters  worse  in  the  ^nd.  '  Now  we 
know,'  they  would  say,  '  that  it  is  all  a  collusion ;  we  have 
indubitable  proofs  of  it ;  do  thou  also  give  glory  to  God, 
and  acknowledge  that  it  is  so.'  Our  '  Give  God  the  praise' 
sets  the  English  reader  on  a  wrong  track.  The  Pharisees 
do  not  mean,  '  Give  the  glory  of  thy  cure  to  God,  and  not 
to  this  sinful  man,  who  in  truth  could  have  contributed 
nothing  to  it,' — attempting,  in  Hammond's  word,  '  to  draw 
him  from  that  opinion  of  Christ  which  he  seemed  to  have, 
by  bidding  him  to  ascribe  the  praise  of  his  cure  wholly  to 
God,  and  not  to  look  on  Christ  with  any  veneration.'  So 
too  Jeremy  Taylor  :  *  The  spiteful  Pharisees  bid  him  give 
glory  to  God,  and  defy  the  minister ;  for  God  indeed  was 
good,  but  He  wrought  that  cure  by  a  wicked  hand.'  But 
they  could  not  mean  this ;  who  did  not  allow  that  any 
cure  had  taken  place  at  all ;  professed  on  the  contrary  to 

^  Oar  Lord  is  tliought  to  refer  to  all  these  three  degrees  of  separation, 
Luke  vi.  22,  expressing  the  lightest  by  the  a^op/^ai',  the  severer  by  the 
oi<i<'(;'f(i',  and  the  severest  of  all  by  the  iKfidWiiv.  But  it  may  well  be 
doubtful  whether  these  diflerent  grades  of  excommuuication  were  so  ac- 
curately distinguished  in  his  time  (see  Winer,  Realworierbuch,  a,  \.  Bann 
Vitringa,  De  Synagogd,  p.  738). 


320  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  ETES 

believe  tliat  the  alleged  healing  was  a  fraud  and  conspiracy 
throusrhout,  contrived  between  Christ  and  the  man  who 
was  before  them.  The  words  are  rather  an  adjuration  to 
him  that  he  should  speak  the  truth  ^  (cf.  Josh.  vii.  19). 
Hitherto  he  has  been  acting  as  though  he  could  deceive 
not  merely  men  but  God,  but  now  let  him  honour  or  ^cjive 
glory '  to  God,  uttering  that  which  is  truth  before  Him,  and 
avouching  so  his  belief  in  Him  as  a  God  of  knowledge,  of 
righteousness,  and  of  truth ;  whom  no  lie  will  escape,  and 
who  will  show  Himself  a  swift  witness  against  all  ungodli- 
ness of  men.'  *  We  know  that  this  man  is  a  sinner,  a  more 
than  ordinary  transgressor,  one,  therefore,  to  whom  last 
and  least  of  all  would  God  have  given  this  higher  power  ; 
your  story  then  cannot  be  true ;  we  who  have  the  best 
opportunities  of  knowing,  know  this.'  They  will  overbear 
him  with  the  authority  of  their  place  and  station,  and 
with  their  confident  assertion. 

The  man,  whom  we  must  recognize  throughout  as 
ready-witted,  genial,  and  brave,  declines  altogether  to 
enter  on  a  question  which  was  plainly  beyond  his  know- 
ledge ;  *  Whether  He  he  a  sinner  or  no,  I  Tcnow  not ; '  yet,  as 
Ohrysostom  observes,  not  in  the  least  allowing  the  alter- 
native that  He  was  so.  This  is  a  matter  which  he  knows 
not;  he  will  speak,  however,  the  thing  which  he  does 
know,  and  they  may  draw  their  own  conclusions ;  *  One 
thing  I  Icnow,  that,  whereas  I  was  Hind,  now  I  see.'  They 
perceive  that  they  can  gain  nothing  in  this  way,  and  they 
require  him  to  tell  over  again  the  manner  of  his  cure ; 

>  The  phrase  is  often  an  adjuration  to  repentance  in  general,  which  is 
in  the  highest  sense  a  taking  shame  to  ourselves,  and  in  that  a  giving 
of  glory  to  God  (i  Sara.  vi.  5 ;  Jer.  xiii.  16 ;  i  Esdr.  ix.  8  ;  Rev.  xvi.  9). 
Seneca  {Ep.  95)  speaks  very  nobly  of  this  giving  glory  to  God,  as  the 
great  work  of  every  man :  Primus  est  Deorum  cultua,  Deos  credere : 
deinde  reddere  illis  majestatem  mam,  reddere  bonitatem,  sine  qua  nulla 
majestas  est. 

'■*  Beza:  Cogita  te  coram  Deo  esse,  qui  rem  totam  novit.  Eeverere 
igitur  ipsius  majestatem,  et  hunc  illi  honorem  habe,  ut  palam  fateri  rem 
totam  malis,  quam  coram  eo  mentiri. 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  321 

*  Then  said  they  to  him  again,  What  did  He  to  thee  ?  how 
opened  He  thine  eyes  ? '  hoping  either  to  detect  on  a  second 
repetition  some  contradictions  in  his  story,  or  to  find 
something  which  they  can  better  lay  hold  on,  and  wrest 
into  a  charge  against  the  Lord ;  or  perhaps,  utterly  per- 
plexed how  to  escape  from  their  present  entanglement, 
they  ask  for  this  repetition  to  gain  time,  and  in  the  hope 
that  some  light  may  break  upon  them  presently. 

But  the  man  has  grown  weary  of  the  examinations  to 
which  they  are  submitting  him  anew,  and  there  is  some- 
thing of  defiance  in  his  answer  :  '  I  have  told  you  already, 
and  ye  did  not  hear :  wherefore  woidd  ye  hear  it  again  ? ' — 
and  then,  with  an  evident  irony,  '  Will  ye  also  ^  he  his  dis- 
ciples ? '  It  is  clear  that  these  words  cut  them  to  the 
quick,  though  it  is  not  so  clear  what  exactly  is  the  taunt 
conveyed  by  them.  Is  it  this  ?  '  How  idle  to  tell  you 
over  again,  when  there  is  that  deep-rooted  enmity  in  your 
hearts  against  this  man,  that,  though  convinced  a  hundred 
times,  you  would  yet  never  acknowledge  it,  or  sit  as 
learners  at  his  feet.^  Will  ye  also  become  his  disciples  ? 
[  trow  not.'  This  is  the  commonest  explanation  of  the 
words ;  but  does  not,  however,  agree  perfectly  with  their 
reply.  In  that  they  earnestly  repel  the  indignity  of  being, 
or  intending  to  be,  disciples  of  his.  Such  a  disclaimer 
would  have  been  beside  the  mark,  if  he,  so  far  from  accu- 
sing them  of  any  such  intention,  had  on  the  contrary  laid 
to  their  charge,  that  no  evidence,  no  force  of  truth,  could 
win  them  to  this.  More  probably  then  the  man,  in  this 
last  clause  of  his  answer,  affects  to  misunderstand  their 
purpose  in  asking  a  repetition  of  his  story  :  '  Is  it  then, 
indeed,  that  the  tnith  is  at  length  winning  you  also  to  its 

^  In  this  Kul  vfiilc  may  lie,  as  Chrysostom  suofgests,  a  confession  that 
/<j  was,  or  intended  to  be,  a  follower  of  this  prophet.  Bengel:  Jucunde 
obsers'avi  potest  fides  apud  hunc  honiinem,  dum  Pharisa3i  contradicunt, 
pauilatim  exoriejis. 

^  Calvin :  Significat,  quamvis  centies  convicti  fuerint,  maliguo  hostiliqae 
afl'eetu  eio  egse  occupai^M  ut  nunquam  cessuii  sin  I. 


322  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES 

side,  so  that  you  too  would  fain  find  my  story  true,  and 
yourselves  sit  as  disciples  at  this  man's  feet  ?  '  With  this 
the  angry  rejoinder  of  the  Pharisees  will  exactly  correspond. 
Nothing  could  have  stung  them  more  than  the  bare  sug- 
gestion of  such  a  discipleship  on  their  parts  :  '  Then  they 
reviled  *  him,  and  said.  Thou  art  his  disciple,"^  hut  we  are 
Hoses'  disciples' — setting,  as  was  their  wont,  Moses  against 
the  Lord,  and  contrasting  their  claims  :  '  ive  know  that  God 
spaJce  unto  Moses  ;'  he  had  a  commission  and  an  authority; 
but  'as  for  this  fellow,  we  know  not  from  tvhence  He  is;' 
all  is  obscure,  uncertain  about  Him  ;  there  is  no  proof  that 
God  has  given  Him  a  commission,  no  one  can  certainly 
affirm  whether  He  be  from  above  or  from  beneath.  On  a 
former  occasion  their  charge  against  Him  had  been  that 
they  knew  whence  He  was  (John  vii.  27),  so  impossible  is 
it  to  convince  those  who  are  resolved  to  remain  uncon- 
vinced. 

This  confession  that  they  are  at  fault,  unable  to  explain 
so  new  and  wonderful  an  appearance,  emboldens  the  man 
yet  further.  They  had  left  a  blot,  and  he,  quick-witted 
with  all  his  plainness,  fails  not  to  take  instant  advantage 
of  it.  There  is  an  irony  keener  yet  in  his  present  retort 
than  in  his  last :  'Why  herein  is  a  marvellous  thing,  that  ye 
know  not  from  whence  He  is,  and  yet  He  hath  opened  mine 
eyes.  This  is  wonderful ;  here  is  one  evidently  clothed  with 
powers  mightier  than  man's,  able  to  accomplish  a  work 
like  this  ;  and  you,  the  spiritual  rulers  of  our  nation,  you 
that  should  try  the  spirits,  should  be  able  to  pronounce  of 
each  new  appearance  whether  it  be  of  God  or  not,  here 
acknowledge  your  ignorance,  and  cannot  decide  whence  He 
is,  whether  of  earth  or  of  heaven.^     Now  we  know,  for  you 

^  Maledixerunt  in  tlie  Latin;  on  which  Augustine  exclaims:  Tftle 
maledictuni  sit  super  nos,  et  super  filios  nostros — this,  and  not  that  which 
the  Jews  desired  on  themselves  (Matt,  xxvii.  25). 

'  2ii  ti  {.laO^Ti'is  iKfivov.  Bengel  well:  Hoc  verbo  removent  Jesum  a 
eese. 

'  Compare  our  Lord'8  question  to  his  adversaries,  Matt.  xxi.  2s :  'Th.9 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  323 

have  yourselves  declared  tlie  same  (see  ver.  24),  that  God 
heareth  not  sinneis ;  but  this  mau  He  Jiath  lieard,  and 
enabled  Him  to  do  a  work  without  parallel ;  therefore  I 
know  whence  He  is  ;  for  "  if  this  man  were  not  of  God,  He 
could  do  nothing  " — being  the  same  conclusion  at  which 
one  of  themselves  had  arrived  '  (John  iii.  2). 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  rapidly  the  man's  faith 
and  insight  and  courage  have  grown  during  this  very  ex- 
amination. He  who  had  said  a  little  while  before, 
'  Whether  He  he  a  sinner  or  no,  I  hioiv  not,'  evading  the 
answer,  now  declares  boldly,  '  We  hioiv  that  God  heareth 
not  sinners.'  Nor  need  we  take  exception,  as  many  have 
taken,  at  his  maxim,  nor  urge,  as  they  have  thought  it 
needful  to  do,  that  this  saying  has  no  scriptural  autho- 
rity,' being  the  utterance  neither  of  Christ  nor  of  one  of 

baptism  of  John  lohetice  was  it  (rroHtv  »})')?  from  heaven  or  of  men?' 
which  best  explains  the  iruOtv  (=«)'  rola  i'^iwiiq,  ver.  24)  here.  In  the 
same  way  Pilate's  question  to  our  Lord,  'Iflience  art  Thou  ? '  (John  xix. 
9)  is  to  be  explained,  *To  what  world  dost  Thou  belontr?' 

^  Thus  Orij^en  (In  Esai.  Horn,  v.) :  Peccatores  exaudit  Deus.  Quod  si 
timetis  illud  quod  in  Evangelio  dicitur,  Scinuis  quia  peccatores  non  ex- 
audiat  Deus,  nolite  pertimescere,  nolite  credere.  Cjbcus  erat  qui  hoc 
dixit.  Magis  autem  credite  ei  qui  dicit,  et  non  mentitur,  Etsi  fuerint 
peccata  vestra  ut  coccinum,  ut  lanam  dealbabo.  But  elsewhere  rightly 
(Comm.  in  Honi.  v.  18):  Aliud  est  peccare,  aliud  peccatorem  esse. 
Peccator  dicitur  is,  qui  multa  delinquendo  in  consuetiidinem,  et,  ut  ita 
dicam,  in  studium  peccandi  jam  venit.  Augustine  (Senyi.  cxxxvi.):  Si 
peccatores  Deus  non  exaudit,  quam  spem  habemus  ?  Si  peccatores  Deus 
non  exaudit,  ut  quid  oramus  et  testimonium  peccati  nostri  tunsione  pectoris 
dicimus  [Luke  xviii.  10]  ?  Certe  peccatores  Deus  exaudit.  Sed  ille  qui 
ista  dixit,  nondum  laverat  fuciem  cordis  de  Siloa.  In  oculis  ejus  prsecesse- 
rat  sacramentum :  sed  in  coide  nondum  erat  effectum  gratiie  beneficium. 
Quando  lavit  faciem  cordis  sui  caecus  iste  ?  Quando  eum  Dominus  foras 
missum  a  Judseis,  introraisit  ad  se.  Cf.  Serm.  cxxxv.  5.  Elsewiiere  (Con. 
Lit.  Parmen.  ii.  8)  he  shows  that  bis  main  desire  is  to  rescue  the  passage 
from  the  abuse  of  the  Donatists.  These  last,  true  to  their  plan  of  making 
the  .sacraments  of  the  Church  to  rest  on  the  subjective  sanctity  of  those 
thi-Miyh  whose  hands  they  passed,  and  not  on  the  sure  promise  of  Him 
from  whose  hands  they  came,  misapplied  these  words.  '  God  heareth  not 
sinners;^  how  then,  they  asked,  can  these  minister  blessings  to  others?  It 
would  be  enough  to  answer  that  it  is  not  them  whom  God  hears,  but  the 
Church  which  speaks  through  them ;  nor  did  it  need,  because  of  this 
abuse  of  the  words,  to  except  against  the  statement  itself,  as  smacking  of 
errors  from  which  the  man  was  not  yet  wholly  delivered.     Calvin  better : 


324  THE    OPENING    OF   THE  EYES 

his  inspired  servants,  but  only  of  a  man  not  wliolly  en- 
lightened yet,  in  whose  mind  truth  and  error  were  yet 
struggling.  That  the  words  have  in  themselves  no  autho- 
rity is  most  true  ;  still  they  may  well  be  allowed  to  stand, 
and  that  in  the  intention  of  the  speaker.  For  the  term 
'  sinner '  has  more  than  one  application  in  Scripture. 
Sometimes  it  is  applied  to  all  men,  as  they  are  the  fallen 
guilty  children  of  Adam.  Were  it  true  that  in  this  sense 
*  God  heareth  not  sinners,'  such  were  a  terrible  announce- 
ment indeed ;  nothing  short  of  this,  God  heareth  not  any 
man  ;  or  if  by  '  sinners  '  were  understood  more  than  ordi- 
nary transgressors,  and  the  words  implied  that  such  would 
not  be  heard,  though  they  truly  turned,  this  too  would  be 
an  impeaching  of  God's  grace.  But  the  Scripture  knows 
another  and  emphatic  use  of  the  term  '  sinners/ — men  in 
their  sins,  and  not  desiring  to  be  delivered  out  of  them ' 
(Isai.  xxxiii.  14;  Gal.  ii.  15);  and  in  this,  which  is  the 
sense  of  the  speaker  here,  as  of  the  better  among  the 
Pharisees,  who  a  little  earlier  in  the  day  had  asked,  '  How 
can  a  man  that  is  a  sinner  do  such  miracles  ? '  (ver.  16;  cf. 
X.  21),  it  is  most  true  '  that  God  heareth  not  sinners ; '  their 
prayer  is  an  abomination  ;  and  even  if  they  ask,  they  ob- 
tain not  their  petitions  '  (Isai.  i.  1 1-15  ;  lix.  1,2;  Prov.  i. 
28 ;  XV.  8,  29 ;  xxi.  27  ;  xxviii.  9  ;  Ps.  1.  16  ;  Ixvi.  18  ;  cix. 
7  ;    Job  xiii.   16  ;  xxvii.  9  ;  xxxv.   13  ;  Jer.  xiv.  12  ;  Amos 

Falluntur  qui  caecum  ex  vulgi  opinione  sic  loquutum  esse  putant.  Nam 
peccator  bic  quoque  ut  paulo  ante  impium  et  sceleratum  significat  (ver. 
24).     Est  autem  hsec  perpetua  Scripturse  doctrina,  quod  Deus  non  ex- 

audiat  nisi  a  quibus  veve  et  sincero  corde  Tocatur Ideo  non  male 

ratiocinatuv  cascus,  Cbristuni  a  Deo  profectum  esse,  quem  suis  votis  ita 
propitium  habet. 

'  Tbus  Augustine  (Enair.  in  Ps.  cv.  18):  Non  est  hoc  nomen  [pecca- 
tores]  in  Scriptui'is  usitatum  eoruni,  qui  licet  juste  ac  laudabiliter  vivant, 
non  sunt  sine  peccato.  Magis  enini,  sicut  interest  inter  irridentes  et 
irrisores,  inter  murniurantes  et  murmuratores,  inter  scribentes  et  scriptore.^, 
et  cetera  similia :  ita  Scriptura  peccatores  appellare  consuevit  vulde 
iniquos,  et  grandibus  peccalorum  sarcinis  oneratos. 

*  The  words  are  so  true  that  Jeremy  Taylor  has  made  them  the  text  of 
throe  among  his  noblest  sermons,  The  return  of  Prmjers,  or  The  conditions 
of  a  jirevailing  Prayer. 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  325 

V.  21-23  5    ^i^*  "^*  4  5    J^"^-   i"^-  ^)  5  ^'^  °^^V  obtain  tliem 
for  tlieir  worse  confusion  in  the  end. 

This  was  what  least  of  all  the  Pharisees  could  endure, 
that  the  whole  relations  between  themselves  and  this  man 
should  thus  be  reversed, — that  he  should  thus  be  their 
teacher ;  and  while  it  was  now  plain  that  he  could  neither 
be  cajoled  nor  terrified  from  his  simple  yet  bold  avowal  of 
the  truth,  their  hatred  and  scorn  break  forth  without  any 
restraint : '  Tliou  wast  altogether  horn  in  sins, — not  imperfect 
in  body  only,  but,  as  we  now  perceive,  maimed  and  deformed 
in  soul  also,  that  birth-sin,  which  is  common  to  all  (Ps.  li. 
5),  assuming  far  more  than  a  common  mali^ity  in  thee  ' 
— for  so  much  their  words  imply — 'and  dost  thou  teach 
us  ? '  Thou  that  camest  forth  from  thy  mother's  womb 
with  the  note  of  thy  wickedness  upon  thee,  dost  thou 
school  us,  presuming  to  meddle  and  make  in  such  high 
matters  as  these  ? '  They  take  the  same  view  of  his 
calamity,  namely,  that  it  was  the  note  of  a  more  than 
ordinary  guilt,  which  the  disciples  had  suggested ;  but 
make  hateful  application  of  it.  Characteristically  enough 
they  forget  that  the  two  charges,  one  that  he  had  never 
been  blind,  and  so  was  an  impostor, — the  other  that  he 
bore  the  mark  of  God's  anger  in  a  blindness  which  reached 
back  to  his  birth, — will  not  agree  together,  but  mutually 
exclude  one  another.  'And  they  cast  him  out,' — which 
does  not  merely  mean,  as  some  explain  it  (Chrysostom, 
Maldonatus,  Grotius,  Tholuck),  rudely  flung  him  forth  from 
the  hall  of  judgment,  wherever  that  may  have  been  ;  but, 
according  to  the  decree  which  had  gone  before,  they  de- 
clared him  to  have  come  under  those  sharp  spiritual  cen- 
sures denounced  against  any  that  should  recognize  the  pro- 
pliotio  offi(!0  of  the  Lord  (John  vii.  13).  Only  so  would  the 
act  have  the  importance  which  (ver.  35)  is  attached  to  it 
fcf.  John  xi.    32  ;  3  John    10).     No   doubt  the   sign  and 

1  Bengel :  Exprobrant  de  cfecitate  pristina.  Calvin :  Pcrinde  illi  in- 
Bultant,  acsi  ab  utero  matris  cum  scelerum  suorum  uota  prodiisset. 


326  THE   OPENING   OF   THE  EYES 

initial  act  of  this  excommunication  was  the  thrusting  him 
forth  and  separating  him  from  their  own  company  (Acts 
vii.  58)  ;  '  and  so  that  other  explanation  has  its  relative 
truth.2  Yet  this  was  not  all,  or  nearly  all,  involved  in  the 
words.  This  violent  putting  of  him  forth  from  the  hall  of 
audience  was  only  the  beginning  of  the  things  which  he 
should  suffer  for  Christ's  sake.  Still  there  was,  to  use  the 
words  of  Fuller  on  this  very  occasion,  this  comfort  for 
him,  that '  the  power  of  the  keys,  when  abused,  doth  not 
shut  the  door  of  heaven,  but  in  such  cases  only  shoot  the 
bolt  beside  the  lock,  not  debarring  the  innocent  person  en- 
trance thereat.' 

And  in  him  were  eminently  fulfilled  those  words,  '  Bles- 
sed are  ye  when  men  shall  hate  you,  and  when  they 
shall  separate  you  from  their  company,  and  shall  reproach 
you,  and  cast  out  your  name  as  evil,  for  the  Son  of  man's 
sake  '  (Luke  vi.  22;  cf.  Isai.  Ixvi.  5  ;  John  xvi.  2).  He  is 
cast  out  from  the  meaner  fellowship,  to  be  received  into 
the  higher, — from  that  which  was  about  to  vanish  away, 
to  be  admitted  into  a  kingdom  not  to  be  moved.  The 
synagogue,  so  soon  to  be  '  the  sjmagogue  of  Satan,'  rejects 
him. ;  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  and  Christ,  the  great 
K\r)Zov^os  in  that  kingdom,  receives  him ;  for  in  him  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist  shall  be  fulfilled,  *  When  my  father 
and  my  mother  forsake  me,  the  Lord  taketli  me  up  '  (Ps. 
xxvii.  12).  He  has  not  been  ashamed  of  Christ,  and  now 
Christ  reveals  his  true  name  and  his  glory  unto  him ;  so 
that  he  beholds  Him  no  longer  as  a  prophet  from  God, 
which  was  the  highest  height  to  which  hitherto  his  faith 
had  reached,  but  as  the  Son  of  God  Himself.  Thus  to  him 
that  hath  is  given,  and  he  ascends  from  faith  to  faith. 
^  Jesus  heard  that  they  had  cast  Mm  out,'  and,  HiiiiBelf  tho 

^  Corn,  a  I^apide :  Utrumqae  eos  fecisse  ent  credibile,  scilicet  caecum 
ex  domo,  et  boo  gynibolo  ex  Ecclesia  sua.,  ejecisie,  'L^jiaWttv  will  tbeu 
have  the  technical  meaning  which  it  afterwards  retained  in  the  Church 
(see  Suicer,  'I'/ies.  s.  v.). 

*  See  V'ltrinjra,  De  Sijnagogd,  p.  743. 


OF  ONE  BORN  BLIND.  327 

Good  Shepherd,  -went  in  search  of  this  sheep  in  this  fa- 
vourable hour  for  making  it  his  own  for  ever,  bringing  it 
safely  home  to  the  true  fold  ; — '  and  when  He  had  found 
him,'  it  may  be  in  the  temple  (cf.  John  v.  14),  *  He  said 
unto  him,  Dost  thou  believe  on  the  8on  of  God  ?  '  with  an  em- 
f>hasis  in  the  original  on  '  thou  '  which  it  is  hard  to  repro- 
duce in  the  English  :  '  Believest  thou  (au),  while  so  many 
others  are  disbelieving  ?  '  The  man  knows  what  this  title 
*  So7i  of  God  '  means,  that  it  is  equivalent  to  Messiah,  but 
he  knows  of  none  with  right  to  claim  it  for  his  own  :  such 
trust,  however,  has  he  in  his  Healer,  that  whomsoever  He 
will  point  out  to  him  as  such,  he  will  recognize.  '  He 
answered  and  said.  Who  is  He,  Lord,  that  I  might  believe  on 
Him  ?  And  Jesus  said  unto  him.  Thou  hast  both  seen  Him,^ 
audit  is  He  that  talJceth  with  thee'  (cf.  John  iv.  26).  This 
'  Thou  hast  seen  Him,'  refers  to  no  anterior  seeing ;  for,  so 
far  as  we  know,  the  man,  after  his  eyes  were  opened  at 
the  pool,  had  not  returned  to  the  Lord,  nor  enjoyed  any 
opportunity  of  seeing  Him  since.  It  is  rather  a  reply  to 
the  question,  '  Who  is  He,  Lord,  that  I  might  believe  on 
Him  ?  '  '  He  is  one  whom  thou  hast  seen  already  ;  thou 
askest  to  see  Him,  but  this  seeing  is  not  still  to  do  ;  ever 
since  thou  hast  been  speaking  with  Me  thine  eyes  have 
beheld  Him,  for  He  is  no  other  than  this  Son  of  man  that 
talketh  with  thee."' 

And  now  the  end  to  which  all  that  went  before  was  but 
as  the  prelude,  has  arrived :  '  He  said.  Lord,  I  believe  ;  and 
he  worshipped  Him : '  not  that  even  now  we  need  suppose 
him  to  have  known  all  which  that  title,  '  Son  of  God,'  con- 
tained, nor  that,  '  worshipping  '  the  Lord,  he  intended  to 
render  Him  that  supreme  adoration,  which  is  indeed  due 
to  Christ,  but  only  due  to  Him  because  He  is  one  with  the 

^  Godet  has  a  fiue  remark  on  these  words :  Les  mots  Tu  /'as  vu,  rap- 
pellent  expresseiiient  le  miracle  par  lequel  il  a  donne  a  cet  hommc  de 
pouvoir  contempler  celui  qui  hii  parle. 

*  Corn,  a  Lapide  ;  Ht  vidisti  eitm,  nunc  cum  se  tibi  ipse  videndum 
offert. 


^28  THE  OPENING  OF  THE  EYES 

Father.  For  '  God  manifest  in  the  flesh/  is  a  mystery  far 
loo  transcendant  for  any  man  to  embrace  in  an  instant : 
the  minds  even  of  Apostles  themselves  could  only  dilate 
little  by  little  to  receive  it.  There  were,  however,  in  him 
the  preparations  for  that  crowning  faith.  The  seed  which 
should  unfold  into  that  perfect  flower  was  safely  laid  in 
his  heart ;  and  he  fell  down  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  as  of  one 
more  than  man,  with  a  deep  religious  reverence  and  fear 
and  awe.  And  thus  the  faith  of  this  poor  man  was  accom- 
plished. Step  by  step  he  had  advanced,  following  faith- 
fully the  light  which  was  given  him ;  undeterred  by  op- 
position which  would  have  been  fatal  to  a  weaker  faith, 
and  must  have  been  so  to  his,  unless  the  good  seed  had 
cast  its  roots  in  a  soil  of  more  than  ordinary  depth.  But 
because  it  was  such  a  soil,  therefore  when  persecution 
arose,  as  it  soon  did,  for  the  word's  sake,  he  was  not 
oSended  (Matt.  xiii.  21);  but  enduring  still,  to  him  at 
length  that  highest  grace  was  vouchsafed,  to  know  the 
only-begotten  Son  of  God,  however  he  may  not  yet  have 
seen  all  the  glorious  treasures  that  were  contained  in  that 
knowledge.  In  him  was  grandly  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of 
Isai.  xxix.  1 8  ;  and  at  once  literally  and  spiritually :  '  In 
that  day  the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall  see  out  of  obscurity 
and  out  of  darkness.' 

So  wonderful  was  the  whole  event,  so  had  it  brought 
out  the  spiritual  blindness  of  those  who  should  have  been 
the  seers  of  the  nation,  so  had  it  ended  in  the  illumination, 
spiritual  as  well  as  bodily,  of  one  who  seemed  among  the 
blind,  that  it  called  forth  from  the  Saviour's  lips  those 
remarkable  words  in  which  He  moralized  the  whole  :  *  For 
judgment  I  am  come  into  this  world,  that  they  which  see 
not  m,ight  see,  and  that  they  which  see  might  he  made  blind.' 
Compare  the  remarkable  words  of  Isaiah,  xxix.  17,  18, 
which  are,  as  it  were,  a  prophecy  of  all  which  in  this  event 
found  its  fulfilment.  *  I  am  come,'  He  would  say,  *  to  reveal 
every  man's  innermost  state  j  I,  as  the  highest  revelation 


OF  ONE  BOIiX  BLIXD.  329 

of  God,  must  bring  out  men's  love  aud  tlieir  hatred  of 
what  is  divine  as  none  other  could  (John  iii.  19-21) ;  I  am 
the  touchstone  ;  much  that  seemed  true  shall  at  my  touch 
be  proved  false,  to  be  merely  dross ;  much  that  for  its 
little  sightliness  was  nothing  accounted  of,  shall  prove 
true  metal :  many,  whom  men  esteemed  to  be  seeing,  such 
at!  tlio  epi ritual  chiefs  of  this  nation,  shall  be  shown  to  be 
blind  ;  many,  whom  men  counted  altogether  unenlightened, 
shall,  when  my  light  touches  them,  be  shown  to  have 
powers  of  spiritual  vision  undreamt  of  before '  (Matt.  xi. 
25  ;  Luke  v.  25  ;  xv.  7).  Christ  was  the  King  of  truth, — 
and  therefore  his  open  setting  up  of  his  banner  in  the  world 
was  at  once  and  of  necessity  a  ranging  of  men  in  their 
true  ranks,  as  lovers  of  truth  or  lovers  of  a  lie ;  ^  aud  He 
is  here  saying  of  Himself  the  same  thing  which  Simeon 
had  said  of  Him  before  :  *  Behold,  this  Child  is  set  for  the 
fall  and  rising  again  of  many  in  Israel,  ....  thai  the 
thoughts  of  many  hearts  may  he  revealed  '  (Luke  ii.  34,  35). 
He  is  the  stone  on  which  men  build,  and  against  which 
men  stumble, — and  set  for  this  purpose  as  for  that  (i  Pet.  ii. 
6-8  ;  cf.  2  Cor.  ii.  16).  These  words  call  out  a  further 
contradiction  on  the  part  of  the  Pharisees,  and  out  of  this 
miracle  unfolds  itself  that  discourse  which  reaches  down  to 
ver.  21  of  the  ensuing  chapter.  They  had  shown  what 
manner  of  shepherds  of  the  sheep  they  were  in  their  ex- 
clusion of  this  one  from  the  fold :  *  with  force  and  with 
cruelty  have  ye  ruled  them '  (Ezek.  xxxiv.  4 ;  which  whole 
chapter  may  be  profitably  read  in  the  light  of  these  ninth 
and  tenth  chapters  of  St.  John)  :  our  Lord  proceeds  to  set 
over  against  them  Himself,  as  the  good  Shepherd  and  the 
true. 

'  Augustine  {In  Fv,  Joh.  tract,  xliv.) :   Dies  ille  diviserat  inter  lucem  ot 
tenebras. 


19.  TEH  RESTORING  OF  THE  MAN  WITH  A  WITHERED 

HAND. 

Matt.  xii.  9-13  ;  Mark  iii.  1-5  ;  Ltjke  vi.  6-1 1. 

THIS  is  not  the  first  among  our  Lord's  cures  on  the 
Sabbath,  day,*  which  stirs  the  ill-will  of  his  adver- 
saries, or  which  is  used  by  them  as  a  pretext  for  accusing 
Him;  twice  already  we  have  seen  the  same  results  to 
follow  (John  V.  16  ;  ix.  12)  j  but  I  have  reserved  till  now 
the  consideration,  once  for  all,  of  the  position  which  our 
Lord  Himself  assumed  in  respect  of  the  Sabbath,  and  the 
light  in  which  He  regarded  it.  For  such  consideration 
the  present  is  the  most  favourable  occasion ;  since  here,  and 
in  the  discourse  which  immediately  precedes  this  miracle, 
and  which  stands,  if  not  quite  in  such  close  historic  con- 
nexion as  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  might  at  first  sight 

*  The  sabbatical  cures  recorded  in  the  Gospels  are  seven  in  number, 
namelj',  that  of  the  demoniac  in  the  synagogue  of  Capernaum  (Mark.  i. 
21);  of  Simon's  wife's  mother  (Mark  i.  29);  of  the  impotent  man  at 
Bethesda  (John  v.  9);  of  this  man  with  a  withered  hand;  of  the  man 
born  blind  (John  ix.  14);  of  the  woman  with  a  spirit  of  infirmity  (Luke 
xiii,  14) ;  of  the  man  who  had  a  dropsy  (Luke  xiv.  i).  We  have  a 
general  intimation  of  many  more,  as  at  Mark  i,  34;  and  the  'one  work' 
to  which  our  Lord  alludes,  John  vii.  21-23,  is  perhaps  no  recorded 
miracle,  but  one  which  is  only  referred  to  there.  On  the  many  miracles 
which  our  Lord  thought  good  to  effect  on  this  day,  we  havo  thesa  re- 
marks by  Jeremy  Taylor  {Life  of  Christ,  pt.  iii.  sect.  14):  'Jesus,  that 
He  might  draw  off  and  separate  Christianity  from  the  yoke  of  ceremonies 
by  abolishing  and  tnking  off  the  strictest  Mosaical  rte».  chose  to  do  very 
many  of  his  miracles  upon  the  Sabbath,  that  He  mignt  ao  toe  work  of 
abrogation  and  institution  both  at  once  ;  not  much  unlike  the  saDoancai 
pool  in  Juda?a,  which  was  dry  six  days,  but  gushed  out  in  a  full  stream 
on  the  Sabbath ;  for  though  upon  all  days  Christ  was  operative  and 
miraculous,  yet  many  reasons  did  concur  and  determine  Him  to  a  more 
frequent  working  upon  those  days  of  public  ceremony  and  convention.' 


MAN  WITH  A  WITHERED  HAND  RESTORED.     331 

appear,  yet  in  closest  inner  relation  to  it,  oiTr  Lord  Him- 
self deals  witli  the  question,  and  delivers  the  wei^jhtiest 
words  which  on  this  matter  fell  from  his  lips. 

We  go  back  then  to  that  preceding  discourse,  and  to  the 
circumstances  which  gave  rise  to  it.  The  Pharisees  were 
offended  with  the  disciples  for  plucking  ears  of  corn  and 
eating  them  upon  the  Sabbath.  It  was  not  the  act  itself, 
as  an  invasion  of  other  men's  property,  which  offended, 
for  the  very  law  which  they  stood  forward  to  vindicate 
had  expressly  permitted  as  much :  '  When  thou  comest 
into  the  standing  com  of  thy  neighbour,  then  thou  may  est 
pluck  the  ears  with  thine  hand '  ^  (Deut.  xxiii.  25)  ;  by 
limitations  even  slight  as  this  upon  an  absolute  proprietor- 
ship God  asserting  that  He  was  Himself  the  true  proprietor 
of  all  the  land,  and  that  all  other  held  only  of  Him.  Not 
then  in  what  they  did,  but  in  the  day  on  which  they  did  it, 
the  fault  of  the  disciples,  if  any,  consisted.  The  Pharisees 
accuse  them  to  their  Lord :  '  Why  do  they  on  the  Sabbath 
day  that  which  is  not  lawful  ?  '  Either  He  shall  be  obliged 
to  confess  his  followers  transgressors  of  the  law;  or, 
defending  them,  shall  become  a  defender  of  the  transgres- 
sion;— in  either  case  a  triumph  for  his  foes.  So  they 
calculate,  but  the  issue  disappoints  their  calculation  (cf. 
Matt.  xxii.  15-22).  The  Lord  seeks  in  his  reply  to  raise 
the  objectors  to  a  truer  point  of  view  from  which  to  con- 
template the  act  of  his  disciples ;  and  by  two  examples, 
and  these  drawn  from  that  very  law  which  they  believed 
they  were  asserting,  would  show  them  ho^v  the  law,  if  it 
is  not  to  work  mischievously,  must  be  spiritually  handled 
and  understood. 

These  examples  are  derived,  one  from  the  Old-Testament 
history,  the  other  from  that  temple-service  continually 
going  on  before  their  eyes.  The  first,  David's  claiming 
and  obtaining  the  show-bread  from  the  High  priest  on  the 
occasion  of  his  flight  from  Saul  (i   Sam.  xxi.  1-6,  might) 

*  See  Kobinson's  Researches,  vol.  ii.  p.  192. 
22 


332  THE  RESTORING   OF   THE 

be  expected  to  carry  weiglit  witli  them  whom  He  is  seek- 
ing to  convince,  David  being  for  them  the  great  pattern 
and  example  of  Old-Testament  holiness  :  '  Will  ye  affirm 
that  they  did  wrong, — David  who  in  that  necessity  claimed, 
or  the  High  priest  who  gave  to  him,  the  holy  bread  ? ' 
The  second  example  came  yet  nearer  home  to  the  gain- 
sayers,  and  was  more  cogent  still,  being  no  exceptional 
case,  but  one  grounded  in  the  very  constitution  of  the 
Levitical  service  :  '  Ye  do  yourselves  practically  acknow- 
ledge it  right  that  the  rest  of  the  Sabbath  should  give 
place  to  a  higher  interest,  to  the  service  of  the  temple ; 
that,  as  the  lesser,  it  should  be  subordinated,  and,  where 
needful,  offered  up  to  this  as  the  greater.  The  sacrifices, 
with  all  the  laborious  preparations  which  they  require,  do 
not  cease  upon  the  Sabbath  (Num.  xxviii.  8,  9) ;  all  which 
is  needful  for  completing  them  is  accomplished  uj)on  that 
day  ;  yet  no  one  accounts  the  priests  to  be  therefore  in  any 
true  sense  violators  of  the  law ;  ^  such  they  would  rather 
be  if  they  left  these  things  undone."^  And  then,  lest  the 
Pharisees  should  retort,  or  in  their  hearts  make  exception, 
that  the  work  referred  to  was  wrought  in  the  service  of 
the  temple,  and  was  therefore  permitted,  while  there  was 
no  such  serving  of  higher  interests  here.  He  adds,  'But  I 
say  unto  you,  That  in  this  place  is  One  greater  than  the  tem- 
fle ; '  One  whom  therefore,  by  still  better  right,  his  ser- 
vants may  serve,  and  be  guiltless.^     He  contemplates  his 

'  Ministerium  pellit  sabbatum,  was  a  maxim  of  their  owii, 
^  He  pursues  the  same  argument  John  vii.  22,  23.  'For  the  sake  of 
circumcision  you  do  yourselves  violate  the  Sabbath.  Eather  than  not 
keep  Moses'  commandment  that  the  child  be  circumcised  on  the  eighta 
day,  you  will,  if  that  eighth  be  a  Sabbath,  accomplish  all  tlie  work  of 
circumcision  upon  it ;  and  in  thus  making  the  Sabbath,  which  is  lower, 
give  place  to  circumcision,  which  is  higher,  you  have  right.  But  the 
cures  which  I  accomplish  are  greater  than  circumcision  itself.  That  is 
but  receiving  the  seal  of  the  covenant  upon  a  single  member;  my  cures 
are  a  making  the  entire  man  (oAoi;  ^h'OpwTrot)  whole.  Shall  not  the 
Sabbath  then  by  much  better  right  give  place  to  these  works  of  mine  ?  ' 
'  Theophylact :   'AXAd  X'tyiiQ  fint   on  eVt/roi   tipui;  (}(Tiij',  o'l  ct  fiaOnToi  ov, 

Aiyw  ovv  oTi  T-ou  itpov  /iti^ov  iari  wli.     Cocceius  :  Hoc  argumentum  urget 


MAiV   WITH  A    WITHERED  HAND.  333 

disciples  as  already  the  priests  of  the  New  Covenant,  of 
which  He  is  Himself  the  living  Temple.'  It  was  in  their 
needful  service  and  ministration  to  Him,  which  left  them 
no  leisure  regularly  to  prepare  food  or  to  eat,  that  they 
were  an  hungered,  and  profaned,  as  their  adversaries 
esteemed  it,  the  Sabbath.  But  if  those  who  ministered 
in  that  temple  which  was  but  the  shadow  of  the  true, 
might  without  fault  accomplish  on  the  Sabbath  whatso- 
ever was  demanded  by  that  ministry  of  theirs, — if,  as 
every  man's  conscience  bore  witness,  they  were  blameless 
in  such  a  profanation  of  the  Sabbath  as  this,  and  only 
seemed  to  transgress  the  law  that  really  they  might  keep 
it,  by  how  much  better  right  were  they  free  from  all  blame, 
who  ministered  about  the  Temple  not  made  with  hands, 
the  true  Tabernacle,  which  the  Lord  had  pitched  and  not 
man !  "^ 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  absolve  his  disciples  of  any  fault 
in  this  matter ;  the  malignant  accusation  must  not  pass 
without  rebuke;  these  'judges  of  evil  thoughts'  shall 
themselves  be  judged.  *  But  if  ye  had  hioivn  what  that 
ineaneth,  I  will  have  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice,  ye  would  not 
have  condemned  the  guiltless,'  If  with  all  their  searching 
into  the  Scripture,  all  their  busy  scrutiny  of  its  letter,  they 

coutra  tacitam  exceptionem,  nempe,  discipulos  Christi  in  agro  non  in 
templis  fecisse  opus  non  sacerdotale.  Christus  ostendit  majorem  temple 
liic  esse,  eignificans  se  Dominum  templi  esse,  Mai.  iii.  ij  Jer.  xi.  15. 
Quemadmodum  igitur  sacerdotes  licite  fecerunt  opera,  quae  pertinebant 
ad  cultum  Dei  ceremonialem ;  ita  discipuli  Christi  licite  fecerunt  illaqufe 
necesse  erat  facere,  ut  servirent  ipsi  vero  templo  et  Domino  templi.  The 
argument  is  not  affected  by  admitting  ^ilZov  instead  of  niiZmi'  into  the 
text,  as  Laehmann  and  the  best  critical  editions  have  done :  cf.  Matt. 

Xll.  4^>  "'oil  7r\f  (0  1'  'S.oXofnovrog  luOf. 

^  Augustine  (Quasi,  xvii.  in  Matth.  qu.  10):  Unum  exemplum  datum 
rcgia  potestatis  de  David,  alterum  sacerdotalis  de  iis  qui  per  miuisterium 
templi  sabbatum  violant:  ut  multo  minus  ad  ipsum  evulsarum  sabbato 
spicarum  crimen  pertineat,  qui  verus  rex  et  verus  sacerdos  est,  ideo  Do- 
minus  sabbati. 

*  Irenaeus  (Con.  Hcsr.  iv.  8,  3):  Per  legis  verba  suos  discipulos  ex- 
cusans,  et  significans  licere  sacerdotibus  libere  agere.  .  .  .  Sacerdotes 
autem  sunt  omnes  Domini  Apostoli,  qui  neque  agros  neque  domos  haere- 
ditant  hie,  sed  semper  altari  et  Deo  serviunt. 


334  THE   RESTOllING    OF  THE 

liad  ever  so  far  entered  into  the  spirit  of  that  law,  -svliereof 
thej  professed  to  be  the  jealous  guardians  and  faithful 
interpreters,  as  to  understand  the  prophet's  meaning  here, 
they  would  not  have  blamed  them  in  whom  no  true  blame 
could  be  found.  The  citation,  not  now  made  for  the 
first  time  by  our  Lord  (cf.  Matt.  ix.  13),  is  from  Hosea  (vi. 
6),  and  has  some  ambiguity  for  an  English  reader ;  which 
would  be  avoided  by  such  a  rendering  as  this,  '  I  desire 
mercy,  and  not  sacrifice.'  '  In  these  memorable  words  we 
have  one  of  those  prophetic  glimpses  of  the  Gospel,  one  of 
those  slights  cast  upon  the  law  even  during  the  times  of  the 
law,  an  example  of  that  '  finding  fault '  on  God's  part  with 
that  very  thing  which  He  had  Himself  established  (Heb. 
viii.  8),  whereby  a  witness  was  borne  even  for  them  who 
lived  under  the  law,  that  it  was  not  the  highest,  God  having 
some  better  and  higher  thing  in  reserve  for  his  people 
(Ps.  1.  7-15  ;  Jer.  xxxi.  31-34).  The  prophet  of  the  Old 
Covenant  is  here  anticipating  the  great  Apostle  of  the 
New,  saying  in  other  words,  but  with  as  distinct  a  voice, 
*  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  Angels, 
and  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and 
though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity, 
it  profiteth  me  nothing  '  (i  Cor.  xiii.  1-3).  He  is  declaring 
that  what  God  longs  for  on  their  part  who  profess  to  be 
servants  of  his,  is  not  the  outward  observance,  the  sacrifice 
in  the  letter,  but  the  inward  outpouring  of  love,  that 
which  the  '  sacrifice '  symbolizes,  the  giving  up  of  self 
in  the  self-devotion  of  love  (cf.  Heb.  x.  5-10 ;  Ps.  xl.  6-8 ; 
1.  8-14;  li.  16,  17;  Jer.  vii.  22,  23).  This  must  underlie 
every  outward  sacrifice  and  service  which  shall  have  any 
value  m  his  sight;  and  when  a  question  arises  between 
the  form  and  the  spirit,  so  that  the  one  can  only  be  pre- 
served by  the  abandonment  of  the  other,  then  the  form 
must  yield  to  the  life,  as  the  meaner  to  the  more  precious. 

*  In  the   LXX,  "EXtof   OtXa>,   »)    OvaiaVf    Kal   iniyruaiv   Ofoi',  tj   uXoicav 
riofiara. 


MAN   WITH  A    WITHERED   HAND.  335 

In  tliis  spirit  those  Lave  acted,  and  with  a  true  insight 
into  the  law  of  love,  as  the  highest  law  of  all,  who  in 
urgent  necessities  have  sold  the  most  sacred  vessels  of  the 
Church  for  the  redemption  of  captives,  or  for  the  saving,  in 
a  time  of  famine,  of  lives  which  otherwise  would  have 
perished. 

But  the  application  of  the  words  in  the  present  instance 
still  remains  unsettled.  They  might  be  taken  thus  :  '  If 
you  had  at  all  known  what  God  desires  of  men,  what 
service  of  theirs  pleases  Him  best,  you  would  then  have 
understood  that  my  disciples,  who  in  love  and  pity  for 
perishing  souls  had  so  laboured  and  toiled  as  to  go  without 
their  necessary  food,  were  offering  that  very  thing  ;  '  you 
would  have  seen  that  their  loving  violation  was  better 
than  other  men's  cold  and  heartless  fulfilment  of  the  letter 
of  the  commandment.'  Or  else  the  words  may  refer  more 
directly  to  the  Pharisees  :  '  If  you  had  understood  the 
service  wherein  God  delights  the  most,  you  would  have 
sought  to  please  Him  by  meekness  and  by  mercy, — by  a 
charitable  judgment  of  your  brethren, — by  that  love  out  of 
a  pure  heart,  which  to  Him  is  more  than  all  whole  burnt- 
offermgs  and  sacrifices  (Mark  xii.  33),  rather  than  in  the 
way  of  harsh,  severe,  and  unrighteous  censure  of  your 
brethren'  (Prov.  xvii.  15;  Isai.  v.  23).  So  Olshausen:^ 
'This  merciful  love  was  just  what  was  wanting  in  the 
fault-finding  of  the  Pharisees.  It  was  no  true  bettering 
of  the  disciples  which  they  desired ;  no  pure  zeal  for  the 
cause  of  God  urged  them  on.  Eather  sought  they  out  of 
envy  and  an  inner  bitterness  to  bring  something  against 
the  disciples ;  and,  in  fact,  out  of  this  did,  in  an  apparent 
zeal  for  the  Lord,  persecute  the  Lord  in  his  disciples. 

^  Maldonatus:  Hoc  est  quod  Apostoloa  maxime  excusabat,  quod  in 
prredicando  et  fuciendis  miraculis  adeo  fuissent  occupati,  ut  uec  parare 
cibum  nee  capere  possent. 

2  So  Wolf  {Cures,  in  loe.) :  Non  dubitaTerim  verba  hsec  opponi  judicio 
Pliarisaeorum  immiti  etrigido,  de  discipulis  tanquam  Tiolatoribus  sabbati, 
rato. 


336  THE  RESTORING    OF  THE 

They  "  condemned  the  guiltless  ;  "  for  the  disciples  had  not 
out  of  ennui,  for  mere  pastime's  sake,  plucked  those  ears, 
but  out  of  hunger  (ver.  i).  Their  own  thej  had  forsaken, 
and  they  hungered  now  in  their  labour  for  the  kingdom  of 
God.  They  stood  therefore  in  the  same  position  as  David 
the  servant  of  God,  who,  in  like  manner,  with  them  that 
were  with  him,  hungered  in  the  service  of  the  Lord ;  as 
the  priests,  who  in  the  temple  must  labour  on  the  Sabbath, 
and  so  for  the  Lord's  sake  seem  to  break  the  law  of  the 
Lord.  While  this  was  so,  they  also  might  without  scruple 
eat  of  the  show-bread  of  the  Lord  :  what  was  God's,  was 
also  theirs.' 

St.  Mark  has  alone  preserved  for  us  the  important  words 
which  follow :  *  The  Sahhath  was  made  for  man,  and  not 
man  for  the  Sahhath  '  (ii.  27).  The  end  for  which  the 
Sabbath  was  ordained  was  that  it  might  bless  man ;  the 
end  for  which  man  was  created  was  not  that  He  might 
observe  the  Sabbath.  A  principle  is  here  laid  down,  which 
it  is  impossible  to  restrict  to  the  Sabbath,  which  must 
extend  to  the  whole  circle  of  outward  ordinances.  The 
law  was  made  for  man  ;  not  man  for  the  law.  Man  is  the 
end,  and  the  ordinances  of  the  law  the  means ;  not  these 
the  end,  and  man  the  means  (cf.  2  Mace.  v.  19;  a  remark- 
able parallel).  Man  was  not  created  to  the  end  that  he 
might  observe  these ;  but  these  were  given,  that  they 
might  profit  man,  discipline  and  train  him,  till  he  should 
be  ready  to  serve  God  from  the  free  impulses  of  his  spirit.^ 
And  all  this  being  so, '  therefore  the  Son  of  man  is  Lord  also 
of  the  Sahhath.'  To  affirm  with  Grotius,  that '  /Sow  of  man ' 
has  no  deeper  meaning  here  than  '  man '  in  the  verse 
preceding  (thus  Ezek.  ii.  i  ;  iii.  i ;  iv.  i ;  v.  i  ;  vi.  2,  and 
often),  that  the  context  gives  no  room  for  any  other 
interj)retation,  and  from  this  to  conclude  that  the  Sabbath 

'  Even  in  the  Talmud  it  was  said,  *  The  Sabbath  is  in  your  hands,  not 
you  in  the  hands  of  the  Sabbath ;  for  it  is  written,  The  Lord  hath  </iven 
i/(u  the  Sabbath,  Exod.  xvi.  29;  Ezek.  xx.  12.' 


MAN  WITH  A    WITHERED  HAND.  337 

being  ^  made  for  man,''  man  therefore  can  deal  with  the 
Sabbath  as  he  will,  is  a  serious  error.'  For,  in  the  first 
I)lace,  in  no  single  passage  of  the  New  Testament  where 
'  Son  of  man  '  occurs  (and  they  are  eighty-eight  in  all) 
does  it  mean  other  than  the  Messiah,  the  Man  in  whom 
the  idea  of  humanity  was  altogether  fulfilled.  And  then 
secondly,  among  all  the  bold  words  with  which  St.  Paul 
declares  man's  relations  to  the  law,  he  never  speaks  of  him, 
even  after  he  is  risen  with  Christ,  as  being  its  '  lonU  The 
redeemed  man  is  not,  indeed,  under  the  law ;  he  is  released 
from  his  bondage  to  it,  so  that  it  is  henceforth  with  him, 
as  a  friendly  companion,  not  over  him,  as  an  imperious 
master.'^  But  for  all  this  it  is  God's  law,  the  expression  of 
his  holy  will  concerning  man ;  and  he,  so  long  as  he  bears 
about  a  body  of  sin  and  death,  and  therefore  may  at  any 
moment  need  its  restraints,  never  stands  above  it ;  rather, 
at  the  first  moment  of  his  falling  away  from  tlie  libei'ty  of 
a  service  in  Christ,  will  come  under  it  anew.  Even  of  the 
ceremonial  laAv  man  is  not  lord,  that  he  may  loose  himself 
from  it,  on  the  plea  of  insight  into  the  deeper  mysteries 
which  it  shadows  forth.  He  must  wait  a  loosing  from  it 
at  those  hands  from  which  it  first  proceeded,  and  which 
first  imposed  it  upon  him.  But  the  '  8on  of  man,^  who  is 
also  Son  of  God,  has  power  over  all  these  outward  ordi- 
nances. It  was  He  who  first  gave  them  as  a  preparatory 
discipline  for  the  training  of  man ;  and  when  they  have 
done  their  work,  when  this  preparatory  discipline  is  ac- 
complished, it  is  for  Him  to  remove  them  (Heb.  iz.  1 1-15). 
'  Made  under  the  law  '  in  his  human  nature  (Gal.  iv.  4), 

*  Cocceius  answers  well:  Non  sequitur:  Hominis  causa  factum  est 
sabbatum  :  Ergo  homo  est  dominus  sabbati.  Sed  bene  sequitur:  Ergo  is, 
cujus  est  homo,  et  qui  propter  hominem  venit  in  mundum,  quique  oninem 
potestatem  in  cselo  et  terra  possidet,  in  hominis  salutem  et  bonum  est  et 
Doniinus  sabbati.  Ceterum  Dominus  sabbati  non  esset,  nisi  esset  supre- 
mus  voi-wOiriir,  et  nisi  ad  ipsius  gloriam  pertineret  sabbati  institutio,  et 
ejus  usus  ad  salutem  hominis. 

*  He  is  not,  to  use  Augustine's  fine  distinction,  sub  lege,  but  cum  le"-o 
and  in  lege. 


338  THE    RESTORING   OF  THE 

He  is  ahove  the  law,  and  lord  of  the  law,  bj  right  of  that 
higher  nature  which  is  joined  with  his  human.  He  there- 
fore may  pronounce  when  the  shadow  shall  give  place  to 
the  substance,  when  his  people  hare  so  made  one  their  own 
that  they  may  forego  the  other.  Christ  is  '  the  end  of  the 
law,'  and  that  in  more  w^ays  than  one.  To  Him  it  pointed ; 
in  Him  it  is  swallowed  up ;  being  Himself  living  law ;  jei 
not  therefore  in  any  true  sense  the  destroyer  of  the  law, 
as  the  .adversaries  charged  Him  with  being,  but  its  trans- 
former and  glorifier,  changing  it  from  a  bondage  to  a 
liberty,  from  a  shadow  to  a  substance,  from  a  letter  to  a 
spirit  •  (Matt.  v.  17,  18). 

To  this  our  Lord's  clearing  of  his  disciples,  or  rather  of 
Himself  in  his  disciples  (for  it  was  at  Him  that  the  shafts 
of  their  malice  were  indeed  aimed),  the  healing  of  the 
man  with  a  withered  hand  is  by  St.  Matthew  immediately 
attached,  although  from  St.  Luke  we  learn  that  it  was  on 
'  another  Sabbath  '  that  it  actually  found  place.  Like  the 
very  similar  healing  of  the  woman  with  a  spirit  of  infirmity 
(Luke  xiii.  11),  like  that  of  the  demoniac  at  Capernaum 
(Mark  i.  2,  3),  it  was  wrought  in  a  synagogue.  There,  in 
'  their  sijnagogue,*  the  synagogue  of  those  with  whom  He 
had  thus  disputed,  He  encountered  '  a  man  who  had  his 
hand  withered;'  his  *  right  hand,'  as  St.  Luke  tells  us. 
His  disease,  which  probably  extended  through  the  arm, 
had  its  origin  in  a  deficient  absorption  of  nutriment;  was 
a  partial  atrophy,  showing  itself  in  a  gradual  wasting  of 
the  size  of  the  limb,  with  a  loss  of  its  powers  of  motion, 
and  ending  with  the  total  cessation  in  it  of  all  vital  action. 
When  once  thoroughly  established,  it  is  incurable  by  any 
art  of  man.2 

^  Augustine  (Scrm.  cxxxvi.  3):  Dominus  sabbatum  solvebat :  sed  non 
ideo  reus.  Quid  est  quod  dixi,  sabbatum  solvebat  ?  Lux  ipse  veuerat, 
umbras  removebat.  Sabbatum  enim  a  Domino  Deo  proeceptum  est,  ab 
ipso  Christo  praeceptum,  qui  cum  Patre  erat,  quando  lex  ilia  dabatur :  ab 
ipso  prajceptum  est,  sed  in  umbra  futuri. 

'  See  Winer,  Healworterbuch,  a.  v.  Krankheiten.     In  the  apocryphal 


MAi\    WITH  A    WITHERED   HAND.  339 

Tlie  apparent  variation  in  the  different  records  of  this 
miracle,  that  in  St.  Matthew  the  question  proceeds  from 
the  Pharisees,  in  the  other  Gospels  from  the  Lord,  is  no 
real  one  ;  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  accounts  is  easy. 
The  Pharisees  first  ask  Him,  '  7s  it  lawful  to  heal  on  the 
Sabbath  day  ? '  He  answers  question  with  question,  as 
was  so  often  his  custom  (see  Matt.  xxi.  24) :  '  /  will  ask 
you  one  thing.  Is  it  lawful  on  the  Sabbath  days  to  do  good 
or  to  do  evil  ?  to  save  life  or  destroy  it  ? '  "With  the  same 
infinite  wisdom  which  we  admire  in  his  answer  to  the 
lawyer's  question,  'Who  is  my  neighbour?'  (Luke  x.  29), 
He  shifts  the  whole  argument,  lifts  it  up  altogether  into  a 
higher  region ;  and  then  at  once  it  is  evident  on  which 
side  the  right  lies.  They  had  put  the  alternative  of  doing 
or  not  doing ;  there  might  be  a  question  here.  But  He 
shows  that  the  alternative  is,  the  doing  good  or  the  failing 
to  do  good, — which  last  He  puts  as  identical  with  doing 
evil,  the  neglecting  to  save  as  equivalent  to  destroying 
(Prov.  xxiv.  II,  12).  Here  there  could  be  no  question; 
this  under  no  circumstances  could  be  right ;  it  could  never 
be  good  to  sin.  Therefore  it  is  not  merely  allowable,  but 
a  duty,  to  do  some  things  on  the  Sabbath.'     'Yea,'  He 

Gospel  accordiufi  to  the  Hebrews,  in  use  amonp:  the  Nazarenes  and 
Ebionites,  which  was  probably  our  St.  Mattliew,  with  some  extraneous 
additions,  this  man  is  a  mason,  who  thus  pleMd-t  for  his  own  healing: 
Cajmentarius  eram,  manibus  vietura  quieritans  ;  precor  te,  Jesu,  ut  mihi 
restituas  sanitatem,  ue  turpiter  mendicem  cibos.  The  \Hpa  txon>  ^nof'iv 
i3=,r?/i'  X  ',""  "("""'  ')(,■  w''  of  Philostratus  (  Vita  ApoUun.  iii.  30),  whom  the 
lijdian  sages  heal. 

*  Danzius  (in  Meuschen,  Nov.  Test.  e.v  Tahn.iUudr.  p.  585):  Immutat 
ergo  beneficus  Servator  omnem  controversiae  statuni,  ac  longe  eundem 
ractius,  quam  fraudis  isti  artifices,  proponit.  In  his  interesting  and 
learned  Essay,  Christi  Curatio  Sahbathica  vindimta  ex  ler/ibus  Judaicis, 
Danzius  seeks  to  prove  by  extracts  from  their  own  books  that  the  Jews 
were  not  at  all  so  strict,  as  now,  when  they  would  accuse  the  Lord,  they 
professed  to  be,  in  their  own  observance  of  the  Sabbath.  He  finds  proof 
of  this  (p.  607)  in  the  words,  *  Thou  hypocrite,^  addressed  on  one  such 
occasion  to  the  ruler  of  tlie  synagogue  (Luke  xiii.  15).  It  is  hard  to 
judge  how  far  he  has  made  out  his  point,  without  knowing  how  fiir  the 
extracts  in  proof,  confessedly  from  works  of  a  later,  often  a  far  later,  date, 
fairly  represent  the  earlier  Jewish  canons.     In  the  apocryphal  gospels 


340  THE  RESTORING  OF  THE 

goes  on,  *  and  works  much  less  important  and  urgent  than 
that  which  I  am  about  to  do,  you  would  not  yourselves 
leave  undone.  What  man  shall  there  he  among  you,  that 
shall  have  one  sheep,  and  if  it  fall  into  a  pit  on  the  8ahhath 
day,  will  he  not  lay  hold  on  it,  and  lift  it  out  ?  Hoiv  much 
then  is  a  man  better  than  a  sheep  ?  You  have  asked  Me,  Is 
it  lawful  to  heal  on  the  Sabbath  ?  I  reply,  It  is  lawful  to 
do  well  on  that  day,  and  therefore  to  heal.'  *  They  held- 
their  peace,'  having  nothing  to  answer  more. 

*  Then,' — that  is,  '  when  He  had  looked  round  about  on 
them  with  anger,  being  grieved  for  the  hardness  of  their  hearts 
(Mark  iii.  5), — saith  He  to  the  man,  Stretch  forth  thy  hand.' 
The  presence  of  grief  and  anger  in  the  same  heart  at  the 
same  time  is  no  contradiction.  Indeed,  with  Him  who 
was  at  once  perfect  love  and  perfect  holiness,  grief  for  the 
sinner  must  ever  go  hand  in  hand  with  anger  against  the 
sin ;  and  this  anger,  which  with  us  is  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  turbid  thing,  of  passing  into  anger  against  the 
man,  who  is  God's  creature,  instead  of  being  anger  against 
the  sin,  which  is  the  devil's  corruption  of  God's  creature, — 
with  Him  was  perfectly  pure ;  for  it  is  not  the  agitation  of 
the  waters,  but  the  sediment  at  the  bottom,  which  troubles 
and  defiles  them ;  and  where  no  sediment  is,  no  impurity 
will  follow  on  their  agitation.  This  important  notice  of 
the  anger  with  which  the  Lord  looked  round  on  these  evil 
men  we  owe  to  St.  Mark,  who  has  so  often  presei'ved  for 
us  a  record  of  the  passing  lights  and  shadows  which  swept 
over  the  countenance  of  the  Lord  (vii.  34  ;  x.  21).  The 
man  obeyed  the  word,  which  was  a  word  of  power;  he 
stretched  forth  his  hand,  ^and  it  was  restored^  whole  like  as 
the  other.' 


(see  Thilo,  Codex  Apocnjphus,  pp.  502,  558),  it  is  very  observable  how 
prominent  a  place  among  the  charges  brought  against  Christ  on  his  trial, 
are  the  healings  wrought  upon  the  Sabbath. 

^  'ATTOKfiriarae;;.  Josephus  (A)itt.  viii.  8.  5)  uses  the  remarkable  word 
drn^wvvfiHi'  (cf,  2  Tim.  i.  6)  in  relating  the  restoration  of  Jeroboam's 
withered  arm  (i  Kin.  xi.  6). 


MAR  WITH  A   WITEERED  EAXD  341 

Hereupon  tlie  exasperation  of  Christ's  enemies  rises  to 
tlie  liigliest  pitch.  He  has  broken  their  traditions ;  He 
lias  put  them  to  silence  and  to  shame  before  all  the  people. 
They  loere  filled  with  madness^  as  St.  Luke  tells  us  ;  or,  in 
the  words  of  St.  Matthew,  '  went  out  and  held  a  council 
against  Hijn,  how  they  might  destroy  Him '  (cf.  John  xi.  53). 
In  their  blind  hate  they  snatch  at  the  nearest  weapon  in 
their  reach  ;  do  not  even  shrink  from  joining  league  with 
the  Herodians,  the  Romanizing  party  in  the  land, — 
attached  to  Herod  Antipas,  the  ruler  of  Galilee,  who  was 
only  kept  on  his  throne  by  Roman  influence, — if  between 
them  they  may  bring  to  nothing  this  new  power  which 
equally  menaces  both.  So,  on  a  later  occasion  (Matt. 
xxii.  16),  the  same  parties  are  leagued  together  to  ensnare 
Him.  For  thus  it  is  ever  with  the  sinful  world.  Its 
factions,  divided  against  one  another,  can  yet  lay  aside  for 
the  moment  their  mutual  jealousies  and  enmities,  to  join 
in  a  common  conspiracy  against  the  truth.  The  kingdom 
of  lies  is  no  longer  a  kingdom  divided  against  itself,  when 
the  kingdom  of  the  truth  is  to  be  opposed.  Between  lie 
and  lie,  however  seemingly  antagonistic,  there  are  always 
points  of  contact,  so  that  they  can  act  together  for  a 
while  ;  it  is  only  between  a  lie  and  the  truth  that  there  is 
absolute  opposition,  and  no  compromise  possible.  Herod 
and  Pilate  can  be  friends  together,  if  it  be  for  the  de- 
stroying of  the  Christ  (Luke  xxiii.  12).  The  Lord,  aware 
of  the  machinations  of  his  enemies,  withdraws  from  their 
malice  to  his  safer  retirements  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  sea  of  Galilee  (Mark  iii.  7 ;  John  xi.  53, 


20.    THE    RESTORING     OF    THE    WOMAN   WITH   A    SPIRIT 
OF  INFIRMITY. 

Luke  xiii.  10-17. 

WE  liave  here  another  of  those  cures,  which,  as  having 
been  accomplished  on  the  Sabbath,  awoke  the  in- 
dignation of  the  rulers  of  the  Jewish  Church ;  cures,  of 
which  some,  though  not  all,  are  recorded  chiefly  for  the 
sake  of  showing  how  the  Lord  dealt  with  these  cavillers  ; 
and  what  He  Himself  contemplated  as  the  true  hallowing  of 
that  day.  This  being  the  main  point  which  the  Evangelist 
has  in  his  eye,  everything  else  falls  into  the  background. 
We  are  not  told  where  this  healing  took  place ;  but  only 
that  *  He  was  teaching  in  one  of  the  synagogues  on  the 
Sabbath.'  Wliile  there  was  but  one  temple  in  the  land, 
and  indeed  for  all  Jews  in  all  the  world, —  for  that  on 
Mount  Gerizim  and  that  in  Egypt  were  alike  impostures 
(John  iv.  22),  shells  without  a  kernel,  fanes  empty  of  all 
presence  of  God, — there  were  synagogues  in  every  place ; 
and  in  these,  on  every  Sabbath,  prayer  was  wont  to  be 
made,  and  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  read  and 
expounded  (Luke  iv.  16,  17;  Acts  xiii.  14,  15;  xv.  21). 
*  And,  hehold,  there  was  a  woman  which  had  a  spirit  of 
infirmity  eighteen  years^  and  was  howed  together,  and  could 
in  no  wise  lift  up  herself.''  Had  we  only  this  account  of 
what  ailed  her,  namely  that  she  '  had  a  spirit  of  infirmity,' 
we  might  doubt  whether  St.  Luke  meant  to  trace  up  her 
complaint  to  any  other  than  the  natural  causes,  whence 
flow  the  weaknesses  and  sufferings  which  afflict  our  race. 
But  the  Lord's  later  commentary  on  these  words, — 'who7n 


THE  WOMAN  WITH  A  SFIIUT  OF  INFIRMITY.  3x3 

Satan  hath  hound,^ — sliows  that  lier  calamity  had  a  deeper 
spiritual  root ;  though  the  type  of  her  possession  was 
infinitely  milder  than  that  of  many  others,  as  is  plain  from 
her  permitted  presence  at  the  public  worship  of  God. 
Her  sickness  having  its  first  seat  in  her  spirit,  had  brought 
her  into  a  moody  melancholic  state,  of  which  the  outward 
contraction  of  the  muscles  of  her  body,  the  inability  to  lift 
herself,  was  but  the  sign  and  the  consequence.' 

'And  when  Jesus  saw  her.  He  called  he}-  to  Him,  and  said, 
Woman,  thou  art  loosed  from  thine  infirmity,^ — not  waiting 
till  his  aid  was  sought  (cf.  Jolm  v.  6),  though  possibly  her 
presence  there  may  have  been,  on  her  part,  a  tacit  seeking 
of  that  aid.  As  much  seems  implied  in  the  words  of  the 
ruler  of  the  synagogue,  bidding  the  multitude  upon  other 

*  This  woman  is  often  contemplated  as  the  representative  of  all  those 
whom  the  poet  addresses — 

Oh  curvfe  in  terras  animte ! 

the  erect  countenance  of  man,  in  contrast  with  that  bent  downward  of 
all  other  creatures,  being  the  sign  impressed  upon  his  outward  frame,  of 
his  nobler  destiny,  of  a  heavenly  hope,  with  which  they  have  nothing  in 
common : 

Os  homini  sublime  dedit,  cajlumque  tueri 
Jussit,  et  erectos  in  sidera  tollere  vultus  : 

and  Juvenal,  Sat.  xv.  142-147,  in  a  nobler  strain:  cf.  Plato,  TinKvus, 
90  A. ;  and  the  derivation  by  some  of  drUpioirvc,  as  the  vpivai'd-looking . 
On  the  other  hand,  the  looks  ever  bent  upon  the  ground  are  a  natural 
symbol  of  a  heart  and  soul  turned  earthward  altogether,  and  wholly 
forgetful  of  man's  true  good,  which  is  not  beneath,  but  above,  him. 
Thus  of  Mammon  Milton  writes : 

'Mammon,  the  least  erected  spirit  that  fell 
From  heaven ;  for  even  in  heaven  his  looks  and  thoughts 
Were  always  downward  bent.' 

Thus  Augustine  (Enarr.  ii.  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  24)  :  Qui  bene  audit,  Sursum 
cor,  cuiTum  dorsum  non  habet.  Erecta  quippe  statura  exspectat  spem 
repositam  sibi  in  cselo.  .  .  At  vero  qui  futurasvitae  spem  non  intelligunt, 
jam  excfecati,  de  inferioribus  cogitant  :  ethoc  est  habere  dorsum  curvum, 
a  quo  morbo  Dominus  mulierem  illam  liberavit.  Cf.  Eiiarr.  in  Ps, 
xxxvii.  7  ;  Qiio'st.  Evang.  ii.  qu.  29  ;  Ambrose,  ILxaem.  iii.  12  ;  Theo- 
phylact  (in  loc.}  :  'Vavra  St  fioi  Xa^jSafi  to  iavfiiiTU  Km  tTrl  Tov  ivroQ 
dvBpMTTOp'  avyKi'TTTii  yap  ipvxi)  orav  tTzl  tu^  y^ivaQ  fiofui;  ippovrtSa^  rii'iy,  Kai 
ftticiv  ovpcirwv  f)  Otlop  ^iiv-dZi]Tat, 


344  THE  RESTORING   OF  THE  WOMAN 

days  tlian  the  Sabbath  to  '  come  and  he  healed.^     *  And  He 
laid  Ms  hands  on  her,' ' — this  act  of  poAver,  no  doubt,  accom- 
panying those   words   of  power;    and   from   Him   there 
streamed  into  her  the  currents  of  a  new  life,  so  that  the 
bands,  spiritual  and  bodily,  by  which  she  was  holden,  were 
loosened ;    and  *  immediately  she  was  made  straight,   and 
glorified  God'  (Luke  xvii.  15;  sviii.  43);  others,  no  doubt, 
of  those  present  glorifying  God  with  her  (Matt.  ix.  8;  xv. 
31).     Some  part  of  this  glory  could  not  but  redound  to 
Him  who  was  the  immediate  author  of  her  cure.     But 
there  was  one  who  could  ill  endure  to  be  a  witness  of  this 
(cf.  Matt.  xxi.  15,  16).     That  day  of  gladness,  when,  as 
these  tokens  evidently  declared,  God  had  visited  his  people, 
and  raised  up  a  great  prophet  among  them,  and  given  such 
power  to  men,  was  a  day  of  fierce  displeasure  to  him.     He, 
'  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,'  interrupting,  and  so  far  as  in 
him  lay,  marring  that  festival  of  joy,  '  answered  with  indig- 
nation,'^ because  that  Jesus  had  healed  on  the  Sabbath  day, 
and  said  xmto  the  people,   There  are  six  days  in  which  men 
ought  to  luorJc:  in  them  therefore  come  and  be  healed,  and  not 
on  the  Sabbath.'     Not  venturing  to  come  into  direct  colli- 
sion with  the  Lord,  he  seeks  circuitously  and  covertly  to 
reach  Him  through  the  people,  who  were  more  submitted 
to  his   influence,  and  whom  he   feared   less.     He  takes 
advantage  of  his  position  as  interpreter  of  the  oracles  of 
God ;  and  from  *  Moses'  seat '  would  fain  persuade  them 
that  this  work  done  to  the  glory  of  God — this  undoing  of 
the  heavy  burden — this  unloosing  the  chain  of  Satan, — was 
a  servile  work,  and  one  therefore  forbidden  on  the  Sabbath. 
Rebuking  them  for  coming  to  be  healed,  he  indeed  has 
another  in  his  eye,  and  means  that  rebuke  to  glance  off 

^  Chrysostom  (in  Cramer,  Catena)  :  UpoTCTziTiOijat  di  ku}  x*^P"£  "'"''i/j 
t'l'a  ^aOiofiev  on  Tt)v  tov  Qiov  \6yov  [Aoyov?]  livayiiv  re  Kui  tvepynav  i)  uyia 

■7rt(tlupi]Kt    (TRlK. 

*  Augustine  (Enarr.  ii.  in  Ps.  Ixviii.  24):  Bene  scandalizati  sunt  de 
ilia  erecta,  ipsi  curvi.  And  again  (Ser7n.  cccxcii.  1):  Calumniabantur 
auteni  erigenti,  qui,  nisi  curvi  ? 


WITH  A   SPIRIT  OF  INFIRMITY.  345 

on   Him,  who  upon   this   day  had  been  willing   to  be  a 
Healer. 

The  Lord  takes  him  up  with  unusual  severity.  '  Thoii 
hypocrite  ! '  He  calls  him — zeal  for  God  being  only  the 
cloak  which  he  wore,  to  hide  from  others,  or  perhaps  in  a 
more  hopeless  hypocrisy  still,  from  himself  as  well,  his 
hatred  to  all  which  was  holy  and  divine.  And  this  his 
hypocrisy  Clirist  proceeds  to  lay  bare  to  him,  making  him 
to  feel  that,  however  he  might  plead  to  himself  or  to  others 
the  violation  of  the  Sabbath  as  the  cause  of  his  indigna- 
tion, its  real  ground  lay  in  the  fact  that  Christ  was  glori- 
fied by  the  cure  upon  that  day  wrought :  '  Both  not  each 
one  of  you  on  the  Sahhath  loose  his  ox  or  his  ass  from  the  stall, 
and  lead  him  away  to  watering  ?  And  ought  not  this  woman, 
being  a  daughter  of  Abraham,  whom,  Satan  hath  bound,  lo, 
these  eighteen  years,  be  loosed  from  this  bond  on  the  Sabbath 
day  ?  '  Every  word  of  this  answer  tells.  He  does  not  so 
much  defend  his  breach  of  the  Sabbath,  as  deny  that  He 
has  broken  it  at  all : '  '  You  have  your  relaxations  of  the 
Sabbath's  strictness,  required  by  the  very  nature  and 
necessities  of  your  earthly  condition ;  you  make  no  diffi- 
culty in  the  matter,  where,  through  work  left  undone  on  the 
Sabbath,  loss  would  ensue  to  you  in  your  earthly  posses- 
sions. Your  ox  and  your  ass  are  precious  in  your  sight, 
and,  whatever  you  may  hold  or  teach  concerning  the  strict- 
ness with  which  the  Sabbath  should  be  kept,  disciples  of 
Hillel  or  disciples  of  Schammai,  you  loose  them  on  that 
day ;  yet  are  angry  now  that  I  should  loose  a  human  spirit, 
which,  as  such  is  of  more  value  than  many  beasts.  And 
these  animals,  when  you  unloose  them,  have  not  been  tied 
up  for  more  than  a  few  hours ;  while  I,  in  your  thoughts, 
may  not  unloose  from  the  thraldom  of  Satan  this  captive 

*  TertuUian  {^Adv.  Marc.  iv.  30):  Unusquisque  vestrum  sabbatis  non 
eolvit  asinum  aut  boveni  siium  a  proesepi  et  ducit  ad  potum  ?  Ergo 
Becundum  conditionem  legis  operatus,  legem  con  firm  avit,  non  dissolvit, 
jubeutem  nullum  opus  fieri,  nisi  quod  fieret  omni  animce,  quanto  potius 
humauae.     Cf.  Irenoeus,  Cwi.  Ilcer.  iv.  8. 


346  THE  RESTORING   OF  THE  WOMAN. 

of  eighteen  years/  Yours  too  is  a  laborious  process  of 
unfastening  and  leading  away  to  water, — wliich  yet  (and 
riglitly)  you  do  not  omit ;  being  at  the  same  time  offended 
with  Me,  who  have  but  spoken  a  word,  and  with  that  word 
have  released  a  soul.'  ^  There  lies  at  the  root  of  this  ar- 
gument, as  of  so  much  else  in  Scripture,  an  implied  asser- 
tion of  the  specific  difference  between  man,  the  lord  of 
creation,  for  whom  everything  else  was  made,  on  the  one 
side,  and  all  the  inferior  orders  of  beings  which  occupy  the 
same  earth  with  him,  and  to  which  upon  the  side  of  his 
body  he  is  akin,  on  the  other.  He  is,  and  at  the  same 
time  is  much  more  than,  the  first  link  in  this  chain  and 
order  of  beings  (cf.  i  Cor.  ix.  9 :  '  Doth  God  take  care  of 
oxen  ?  '  Ps.  viii.  8  ;  Luke  xii.  6,  7).  But  besides  the  com- 
mon claims  of  humanity,  this  woman  had  other  and  still 
stronger  claims  to  this  help  from  Him.  She  was  a  '  daugh- 
ter of  Abraham ; ' — an  inheritress,  as  perhaps  the  Lord 
would  imply,  of  the  faith  of  Abraham, '  an  Israelite  indeed,' 
— however,  for  the  saving  of  her  soul  in  the  day  of  the 
Lord,  she  had  come  under  the  scourge  of  Satan  and  this 
long  and  sore  affliction  of  the  flesh  ;  at  all  events,  she  was 
a  member  of  that  house  of  Israel  which  had  the  first  right 
to  all  the  benefits  and  blessings,  spiritual  and  temporal, 
by  Him  brought  into  the  world  (Matt.  xv.  26  ;  Rom.  iii.  i, 
2  ;  xi.  1).  The  narrow-hearted  Scribe  might  grudge  to 
behold  her  a  partaker  of  this  grace  ;  but  in  his  e3'es  it  was 
only  meet  that  she  should  receive  it.  So  He  puts  to 
silence  the  malice  of  isrnorant  men.^ 


'  Ambrose  {Exp.  in  Ltic.  vii.  175):  Vinculum  vinculo  comparat,  .  .  . 
Cum  ipsi  animalibua  sabbato  solvunt  vincula^  reprehendunt  Dominum, 
qui  homines  a  peccatorum  vinculis  liberavit, 

*  Chemnitz  (Harm.  Evany.  112):  Tempus  etiam  inter  se  confert. 
Jumenta  fortassis  ad  nocteni  unam  aut  paucos  dies  prsesepi  alligantur. 
At  vero  hajc  femina  vel  salteni  ob  temporis  prolixitatem  omnium  com- 
miseratione  dignissima  est. 

^  In  a  Sermon  on  the  Day  of  the  Nativity  {Serin.  Incdd.  p.  33)  Augus- 
tine makes  the  following  application  of  this  history :  Inclinavit  se,  cum 


WITH  A   SPIRIT  OF  INFIRMITY.  347 

sublimis  esset,  iit  nos  qui  incurvati  eramus,  erigeret.  Incurvata  siquidem 
erat  humana  natura  ante  adventum  Domini,  peccatorum  onere  depressa ; 
et  quidem  se  in  peccati  vitium  spontanea  voluntate  curvaverat,  sed  sponte 
se  erigere  non  valebat.  .  .  .  Haec  autem  mulier  formam  incurvationis 
totius  humani  generis  prseferebat.  In  bac  muliere  bodie  natua  Dominus 
noster  vinculia  Satanae  alligatos  absolvit,  et  licentiam  nobis  tnbuit  ad 
superna  conapicere,  ut  qui  oiim  couslituti  in  uiiseriis  tristea  amtjuiabamus, 
hodie  venientem  ad  noa  medicum  suscipienteS;  nimirum  gaudeamus. 


21.  TEE  HEALING  OF  THE  MAN  WITH  A  DROPSY, 
Luke  xiv.  i-6. 

ALL  whicli  is  most  remarkable  in  the  circumstances  of 
tliis  miracle  has  been  already  anticipated  in  others, 
chiefly  in  the  two  just  considered,  to  which  the  reader  is 
referred.  Our  Lord  in  his  great  long-sufifering  did  not 
even  at  this  late  period  of  his  ministry  treat  the  Pharisees 
as  wholly  and  finally  hardened  against  the  truth ;  but  still 
seeking  to  win  them  for  his  kingdom.  He  had  accepted  the 
invitation  of  a  chief  among  them  '  to  eat  bread '  in  his 
house.  This  was  upon  the  Sabbath,  with  the  Jews  a 
favourite  day  for  their  festal  entertainments  :  for  it  is  an 
entire  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  day  was  with  them  one 
of  rigorous  austerity ;  on  the  contrary,  the  practical  abuse 
of  the  day  was  rather  a  turning  of  it  into  a  day  of  riot  and 
excess.'  The  invitation,  though  accepted  in  love,  yet  had 
not  been  given  in  good  faith ;  in  the  hope  rather  that  the 
close  and  more  accurate  watching  of  his  words  and  ways, 
which  such  an  opportunity  would  afford,  might  furnish 
matter  of  accusation  against  Him.^  Mischief  lurked  in  the 
aj)parent  courtesy  which  was  shown  Him,  nor  could  the 

'  Un  the  abuses  in  this  kind  of  the  Jemsh  fcJabbatJi  at  a  later  Jay  see 
Chrysostom,  De  Lazaro,  Horn,  i  ;  Augustine,  Enarr.  li.  in  jfs.  xxxii.  2  j 
Enarr.  in  Ps.  xci.  1 ;  Serm.  ix.  3.  Compare  Plutarch  {Symp.  iv.  6):  "Orav 
rrnjSlSarov  Ttfiovaw  [ol ' E/3/9aiot],  ^idXtcrra  fiiv  ttiviiv  kui  olvovaUat  napaKaXovvTat 

*  The  emphasis,  however,  which  Hammond  finds  in  the  ku  I  avrol,  even 
they  that  had  invited  Him  treacherously  watched  Him,  is  questionable. 
Such  a  superabounding  Kai  is  frequent  in  St.  Luke. 


HEALING    OF   THE   MAN   WITH  A   DROPSY.    349 

sacred  laws  of  hospitality  clelend  Him  from  the  ever- wake- 
ful malice  of  his  foes.     'Ihey  '  watclied  Uim.^^ 

'  And  behold,  there  was  a  certain  man  before  Him  which 
had  the  dropsy.'  Some  have  even  suggested  that  this  suf- 
ferer was  of  design  placed  betbre  Him.  But  although  it  is 
quite  conceivable  of  these  malignant  adversaries,  that  they 
should  have  laid  such  a  snare  as  this,  stiU  there  is  no 
warrant  for  a  scribing  to  them  such  treachery  here ;  and 
the  difficulty  which  some  find,  that  if  no  such  plot  had 
existed,  the  man  would  scarcely  have  found  his  way  into 
the  house  of  the  Pharisee,  rests  upon  an  ignorance  of  the 
almost  public  life  of  the  East,  and  a  forgetting  how  easily 
in  a  moment  of  high  excitement,  such  as  this  of  our 
Saviour's  presence  must  have  been,  the  feeble  barriers 
which  the  conventional  rules  of  society  might  oppose  to 
his  entrance  would  have  been  overthrown  (Luke  vii.  36,  37). 
At  any  rate,  if  such  plot  there  was,  the  man  himself  was 
no  party  to  it ;  for  the  Lord  *  took  him,  and  healed  him, 
and  let  him  go.' 

But  before  He  did  this,  He  justified  the  work  which  He 
would  accomplish,  as  more  than  once  He  had  justified 
similar  works  of  grace  and  love  wrought  upon  the  Sabbath, 
and  demanded  of  these  Lawyers  and  Pharisees,  interpreters 
of  the  law,  '  Is  it  lawful  to  heal  on  the  Sabbath  day  ? '  Here, 
as  in  so  many  matters  of  debate,  it  only  needs  for  the 
question  to  be  rightly  stated,  and  all  is  so  clear,  that  the 
possibility  of  its  remaining  a  question  any  longer  has  for 
ever  vanished ;  ^  there  can  be  but  one  answer.  But  as 
this  answer  they  would  not  give,  they  did  what  alone  was 
possible,  *  they  held  their  peace ; '  for  they  would  not  assent, 
and  they  could  not  gainsay.     He  proceeds  :  *  Which  of  you 

^  ""ilffav  7raparrjpoi'/t£i'ot.  For  a  similar  use  of  Traparripiiv  Compare  vi. 
7  ;  XX.  20  ;  Mark  iii.  z  ;  Dan.  vi.  11. 

*  TertuUian  (Adv.  Marc,  iv,  12):  Adimplevit  enim  et  bic  Legem,  dum 
conditionem  interpretatur  ejus,  dum  operum  differentiam  illuminat,  dum 
facit  quae  lex  de  sabbati  feriis  excipit,  dum  ipsum  sabbati  diem,  benedic- 
tione  I'atris  a  piiraordio  sanctum,  benefactione  sua  efficit  sanctiorem,  in 
quo  scilicet  divina  praesidia  ministrabat. 


350     HEALING    OF    THE  MAN    WITH  A   DROPSY. 

shall  have  an  ass  •  or  a'n-  ox  fallen  into  a  fU,  and  will  not 
straightivay  pull  him  out  on  the  Sohhath  day  ? '  Olshausen  : 
*  As  on  other  occasions  (Matt.  xii.  ii  ;  Luke  yiii.  15),  the 
Lord  brings  back  those  present  to  their  own  experience, 
and  lets  them  feel  the  keen  contradiction  in  which  their 
blame  of  Christ's  free  work  of  love  sets  them  with  them- 
selves, in  that,  where  their  worldly  interests  were  at  hazard, 
they  did  that  very  thinfj  whereof  they  made  now  an  occasion 
against  Him.'  We  may  observe,  tha,t  as  in  that  other  case, 
where  the  woman  was  hound.  He  adduces  the  example  of 
unbinding  a  beast  (Luke  xiii.  15), — so  in  this,  where  the 
man  was  dropsical,  a  sufferer  from  water,  the  example  He 
adduces  has  an  equal  fitness.^  '  You  grudge  that  I  should 
deliver  this  man  on  such  a  day  from  the  water  that  is 
choking  him ;  yet  if  the  same  danger  from  water  threatened 
ought  of  your  own,  an  ass  or  an  ox,  you  would  make  no 
scruple  of  extricating  that  on  the  Sabbath.  Why  then  do 
you  not  love  your  neighbour  as  yourselves  ?  why  are  you 
unwilling  that  he  should  receive  the  help  which  you  would 
freely  render  to  your  own?  '  '  And  they  could  not  answer 
Him  again  to  these  things.'  They  were  silenced,  but  not 
convinced ;  and  the  truth,  which  did  not  win  them,  did 
the  only  other  thing  which  it  could  do,  exasperated  them 
the  more;  they  replied  nothing,  biding  their  time  (cf. 
Matt.  xii.  14). 

'  Strange  as  the  reading  v'tot;  instead  of  ovng  at  first  sight  appears,  '  a 
son,^  and  not  'an  «««,'  the  authorities  for  it  are  80  overwhelming  (I 
believe  they  includea  II  the  Uncial  MSS.),  that  one  has  no  right  on  the 
ground  of  internal  difficulties  to  reject  it.  These,  moreover,  are  not  so 
serious  as  at  first  sight  they  seem.  It  is  true  the  argument  a  minori  ad 
majus  is  thus  invalidated,  but  another  is  substituted  in  its  room;  an 
appeal,  namely,  to  the  great  ethical  rule,  *  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself.''  Giiesbach  recommended  woe ;  Scholz,  Tischendorf,  I^achmann 
all  adopt  it.  Exod.  xxi.  33,  to  which  the  favourers  of  o»'<>e  appeal,  tells 
both  ways.  It  may  support  the  reading  ot-vc,  but  it  may  also  have  sug- 
gested it. 

*  So  Augustine  (Qiuest.  Evang.  ii.  29):  Congruenter  hydropicum 
animali  quod  cecidit  inputeum,  comparavit :  huraore  enim  laborabat;  sicut 
et  illain  mulierem  quam  decern  et  octo  annis  alligatamdixerat  .  .  .  compa- 
ravit jumento  quod  solvitur  ut  ad  aquam  ducatur.  Grotius  :  Hydropicum 
eubmergendiB  pecudi,  ut  rijv  avyKvitTovaav  pecudi  vinctas,  comparavit. 


ii.  THE  CLEANSING   OF  THE  TEN  LEPERS. 
LrKE  xvii.  11-19. 

THE  Jews  who  dwelt  in  Galilee,  in  their  necessary 
journeys  to  keep  the  passover  at  Jerusalem,  very 
commonly  took  the  longer  route,  leading  them  across  the 
Jordan,  and  through  the  region  of  Persea  (the  Gilead  of 
the  Old  Testament),  so  to  avoid  the  vexations  and  annoy- 
ances, or  the  worse  outrages,'  to  which  they  were  exposed 
in  passing  through  the  inhospitable  land  of  the  Samaritans. 
For-  these,  at  all  times  unfriendly  to  Jews,  were  naturally 
most  unfriendly  of  all  to  the  pilgrims  who,  travelling  up  to 
the  great  feasts  at  Jerusalem,  thus  witnessed  in  act  against 
the  will- worship  of  Mount  Gerizim,  and  against  the  temple 
of  Samaria  in  which  was  no  presence  of  the  living  God 
(John  iv.  22).  It  is  generally  understood  that  at  this 
time,  notwithstanding  the  discomforts  and  dangers  of  that 
inhospitable  route  (see  Luke  ix.  51-56;  John  iv.  9),  our 
Lord,  with  the  band  of  his  disciples,  on  this  his  last 
journey  to  the  holy  city,  took  the  more  direct  and  shorter 
way  which  led  Him  straight  from  Galilee  *  through  the 
midst  of  Samaria'  to  Jerusalem.  Certainly  the  words 
which  we  have  translated,  *  And  it  came  to  pass  as  He  went 
to  Jerusalem,  that  He  passed  through  the  midst  of  Samaria 
and  Galilee,'  may  bear  this  meaning  ;  in  our  Version  they 
must  bear  it.  At  the  same  time  some  understand  the 
Evangelist  to  say  that  the  Lord  passed  between  these  two 

*  Josepbus  (And.  XX.  6.  i)  relates  the  massacre  by  the  Samaritans  of  a 
great  number  of  Galilaean  pil^rrim?,  which  happened  a  little  later  than 
this. 


352  THE   CLEANSING   OF 

regions,  having  one  on  his  right  hand,  the  other  on  his 
left,  and  skirting  them  both.  This  would  explain  the  men- 
tion, otherwise  unaccountable,  of  Samaria  before  Galilee. 
He  will  then  have  journeyed  due  eastward  toward  Jordan, 
having  Galilee  on  his  left  hand,  and  Samaria,  which  is 
therefore  first  named,  on  his  right :  and  on  reaching  the 
river,  must  either  have  parsed  over  it  at  S'^^jthopolis, 
where  we  know  there  was  a  bridge,  recrossing  it  by  the 
fords  near  Jericho  *  (Josh.  ii.  7),  or  continued  on  the 
western  bank  till  He  reached  that  city,  where  presently 
we  find  Him  (xviii.  35). 

'  And  as  He  entered  into  a  certain  village,  there  met  Him 
ten  men  that  were  lepers,  which  stood  afar  off.'  Their  com- 
mon misery  had  drawn  these  poor  outcasts  together  (cf. 
2  Kin.  vii.  3).  It  had  done  more.  It  had  caused  them  to 
forget  the  fierce  national  antipathy  which  kept  Jew  and 
Samaritan  apart ;  for  a  Samaritan,  as  presently  appears, 
had  found  admission  into  this  forlorn  company.  In  this 
border  land  such  a  fellowship  may  have  been  easier  than 
elsewhere.  There  has  been  already  occasion  to  speak  of 
the  nature  of  leprosy,  and  of  the  meaning  of  the  Levitical 
ordinances  about  it.'*  It  was  the  outward  symbol  of  sin  in 
its  worst  malignity,  as  involving  therefore  entire  separation 
from  God ;  not  of  spiritual  sickness  only,  but  of  spiritual 
death,  since  absolute  separation  from  the  one  fountain  of 
life  must  needs  be  no  less.  These  poor  outcasts,  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  commandment  (Lev.  xiii.  46),  '  stood  afar  off; ' 
and  out  of  a  deep  sense  of  their  misery,  yet  not  without 
hope  that  a  healer  was  at  hand,  and  all  of  them  in  earnest 
now  to  extort  the  benefit,  however  at  a  later  period  some 

^  So  Wetstein :  Non  via  recta  et  brevissima  septentrione  versus  meri- 
diem per  Samariticam  regionem  iter  fecit,  sed  cum  coutinia  Samariae  et 
Galilajfe  venisset,  ab  itinera  deflexit  versus  orientem,  ita  ut  Samariam  ad 
dextram,  Galilseam  ad  sinistram  haberet ;  et  .Tordanem  Sc^thopoli,  ubi 
pons  erat,  videtur  transiisse,  et  juxta  ripam  Jordanis  in  Pertea  descendisse, 
donee  e  regione  Jerichuntia  iteium  trajineret. 

*  See  page  226. 


THE   TEN  LEPERS.  353 

were  remiss  in  giving  thanks  for  it,  *  lifted  up  their  voices 
and  said,  Jesus,  Master,^  have  mercy  on  us  ! ' 

*  And  when  He  saw  them,  He  said  unto  them.  Go,  show 
yourselves  unto  the  priests.''  Most  instructive  is  it  to 
observe  the  differences  in  our  Lord's  dealing  with  the 
different  sufferers  and  mourners  brought  in  contact  with 
Him ;  the  manifold  wisdom  of  the  great  Physician,  vary- 
ing his  treatment  according  to  the  varying  needs  of  his 
patients ;  how  He  seems  to  resist  a  strong  faith,  that  He 
may  make  it  stronger  yet  (Matt.  xv.  23-26) ;  how  He  goes 
to  meet  a  weak  faith,  lest  it  should  prove  altogether  too 
weak  in  the  trial  (Mark  v.  36)  ;  how  one  He  forgives  first, 
and  heals  after  (Matt.  ix.  2,  6)  ;  and  another,  whose  heart 
could  only  be  reached  through  an  earthly  benefit.  He  first 
heals,  and  then  forgives  (John  v.  8,  14).  There  are  here, 
too,  no  doubt  reasons  why  these  ten  are  dismissed  as  yet 
uncleansed,  and  bidden  to  show  themselves  to  the  priests ; 
while  that  other,  whose  healing  was  before  recorded  (Matt. 
viii.  2-4),  is  first  cleansed,  and  not  till  afterwards  bidden 
to  present  himself  in  the  temple.  These  reasons  I  think 
we  can  perceive.  There  was  here,  in  the  first  place,  a 
keener  trial  of  faith.  With  no  signs  of  restoration  as  yet 
upon  them,  they  were  bidden  to  do  that  which  implied 
that  they  were  perfectly  restored, — to  undertake  a  journey, 
which  would  prove  ridiculous,  a  labour  altogether  in  vain, 
unless  Christ's  word  and  promise  proved  true.  In  their 
prompt  obedience  they  declared  plainly  that  some  weak 
beginnings  of  faith  were  working  in  them ;  the  germs  of 
a  higher  faith,  which  yet  in  the  end  was  only  perfectly 
unfolded  in  one.'^     So  much  they  declared,  for  they  must 

'  'ETTKTrar,/^  peculiar  to  St.  Luks  (v.  5;  viii.  24^  45;  ix.  33,  49),  is 
equivalent  to  the  Kvpu  of  St.  Matthew. 

*  Calvin :  Quamvis  euim  foetidam  adhuc  scabiem  in  carne  sua  conspi- 
ciant,  simul  tamen  ac  jussi  sunt  se  ostendere  sacerdotibus,  parere  non 
detrectant.  Adde  quod  nunquam,  nisi  fidei  impulsu,  profecti  essent  ad 
sacerdotes :  ridiculum  enim  fuisset,  ad  testandam  suam  munditiem,  leprae 
judiribus  se  offerre,  nisi  pluris  illis  fuisset  Christi  proraissio,  quam  prffisens 
morbi  sui  intuitus.     Yisibilem  in  carne  sua  lepram  gestant,  unico  tamen 


354  THE   Cr.EANSING  OF 

have  known  veiy  well  that  they  were  not  sent  to  the 
priests  for  these  to  heal  them.  That  wqs  no  part  of  the 
priest'd  office ;  who  did  not  cure,  but  only  prononnco  cured; 
who  cleansed,  yet  not  as  ridding  the  leper  of  his  sii^.kness, 
but  only  as  aiithorita-tively  proclaiming  that  this  had  dis- 
appeared, and  restoring  him,  through  certain  ceremonial 
ordinances,  to  the  fellowship  of  the  congregation  (Lev. 
xiv.  3,  4). 

Then,  too,  as  there  was  a  keener  trial  of  faith,  so  also 
there  was  here  a  stronger  temptation  to  ingratitude. 
When  these  poor  men  first  felt  and  found  their  benefit, 
it  is  little  likely  that  they  were  still  in  the  immediate  pre- 
sence of  their  benefactor ;  more  probably,  already  out  of 
his  sight,  and  some  way  upon  their  journey  ; '  we  know  not 
how  far,  being  only  told  that  '  as  they  went,^  they  were 
cleansed ; '  it  was  not  therefore  an  easy  and  costless  effort 
to  return  and  render  thanks  to  Him.  Some,  indeed,  sup- 
pose that  the  return  of  the  one  Samaritan  did  not  take 
place  till  after  he  had  accomplished  all  which  was  com- 
manded him  ;  that  he  had  been  to  Jerusalem — that  he  had 
offered  his  gift — that  he  had  been  pronounced  clean — and, 
this  his  first  duty  accomplished,  that  he  then  returned  to 
render  thanks  to  the  author  of  his  benefit ;  the  sacred 
narrative  leaping  over  large  spaces  of  time  and  many 
intermediate  events  for  the  purpose  of  bi'inging  together 

Christi  verbo  confisi  mundos  se  profiteri  non  dubitant :  negari  igitur  non 
potest  eorum  cordibus  insitum  fuisse  aliquod  fidei  semen.  .  .  .  Quo  magia 
timendum  est,  ne  et  nobis  contingat  scintillas  fidei  in  nobis  micantes 
extinguere. 

^  Calvin  suggests  another  reason,  whicli  may  have  kept  tbem  away : 
Ut  morbi  memoriam  extinguerent  furtim  elapsi  sunt. 

^  We  learn  from  Tertullian  (Ado.  Marc.  iv.  35)  that  the  Gnostic 
Marcion  saw  in  this  healing  of  the  lepers  by  the  wa\ ,  this  taking  of  the 
work  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Levitical  priest?,  a  contempt  cast  by  the 
Lord  on  the  Mosaic  institutions :  Hie  Christum  semulum  [legis]  affirmat 
prsevenientem  solennia  legis  etiam  in  curatione  decern  leprosorum,  quos 
tantummodo  ire  jussos  ut  se  ostenderent  sacerdotibus,  in  itinere  purgavit, 
sine  tactu  jam  et  sine  verbo,  tacita  potestate,  et  sola  voluntate ;  and  again, 
Quasi  legis  illusor,  ut  in  itinere  curatis  ostenderet  nihil  esse  legem  cum 
ipsis  sacerdotibus.  There  was  no  such  passing  of  them  by,  since  the 
priests'  work  was  not  to  cleanse,  but  to  pronounce  clean. 


THE   TEN  LEPERS.  355 

the  beginning  and  the  end  of  this  history.^  But  certainly 
the  impression  which  the  narrative  leaves  is  different ; — 
that,  having  advanced  some  little  way  on  their  commanded 
journey,  perhaps  in  the  very  village  itself,  they  were 
aware  of  the  grace  which  had  overtaken  them  ;  they  felt 
and  knew  themselves  cleansed;  and  that  then  this  one 
turned  back  in  the  fulness  of  a  grateful  heart  to  give  glory 
to  God  and  thanks  to  his  great  Healer  and  Saviour ;  like 
the  Syrian  Naaman,  who,  delivered  from  the  same  hideous 
disease,  came  back  with  all  his  company,  beseeching  the 
man  of  God  to  take  a  blessing  at  his  hands  (2  Kin.  v.  15) ; 
the  residue  meanwhile  enduring  to  carr}^  away  the  benefit 
without  one  grateful  acknowledgment  rendered  unto  Him 
from  whom  it  came,  and  into  whose  presence  a  very  little 
labour  would  have  brought  them.  The  sin  is  only  too 
common  ;  for,  as  one  has  well  said,  with  aEusion  to  their 
mighty  crying  which  went  a  little  before,  '  We  open  our 
mouths  wide  till  God  open  his  hand ;  but  after,  as  if  the 
filling  of  our  mouths  were  the  stopping  of  our  throats,  so 
are  we  speechless  and  heartless.'  ^ 

Even  He  who  '  knew  what  was  in  man,'  Avho  had  already 
so  often  proved  the  ingratitude  of  men,  marvelled  at  the 
greatness  of  the  ingratitude  of  these  :  for  He  asked, '  Were 
there  not  ten  cleansed  ?  '  or  rather,  *  Were  not  the  ten  cleansed? 
hut  where  are  the  nine  ?  There  are  not  found  that  returned 
to  give  glory  to  God,  save  this  stranger.^  Him  now  He  dis- 
misses with  a  second  blessing,  and  one  better  than  the  first. 
That  earlier  had  reached  but  to  the  healing  of  his  body, 
and  he  had  that  in  common  with  the  unthankful  nine  ;  biit 

'  Calvin  halts  between  this  opinion  and  that  which  follows :  Mihi 
tamen  magis  probabile  est,  non  nisi  audito  sacerdotis  judicio  ad  gratias 
agendas  venisse.  .  .  .  Nisi  forte  magis  placet  diversa  conjectura.simul  ac 
mundatum  se  vidit,  antequam  testimonium  expeteret  a  sacerdotibus,  ad 
ipsuni  auctorem  pio  et  sancto  ardore  correptum  venisse,  ut  sacrificium 
8uum  a  gratiarum  actione  inciperet. 

^  Bernard  :  Importuni  ut  accipiant,  inquieti  donee  acceperint,  ubi  ac- 
ceperint  bgrati.  Calvin :  Sic  inopia  et  esuries  fidem  gignit,  quani  occidit 
eaturitas. 


356  THE   CLEANSING  OF 

gratitude  for  a  lower  mercy  obtains  for  him  a  higher,  a 
blessing  which  is  singularly  his,  and  reaches  not  merely 
to  the  si>rings  of  bodily  health,  but  to  the  healing  of  the 
very  sources  of  his  spiritual  being.  That  which  the  others 
missed,^  to  which  their  bodily  healing  should  have  intro- 
duced them,  and  would  so  have  done,  if  they  had  received 
it  aright,  he  has  obtained ;  for  to  him,  and  to  him  only,  it 
is  said,  '  Go  thy  ivay  ;  thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole.' ' 

It  gives  a  special  significance  to  this  miracle,  and 
explains  its  place  in  that  Gospel  which  is  eminently  the 
Gospel  for  the  heathen,  that  this  thankful  one  should  have 
been  a  Samaritan,  a  stranger  therefore  by  birth  to  the 
covenants  of  promise,  while  the  nine  unthankful  were  of 
the  seed  of  Abraham.  It  was  involved  in  this  that  the 
Gentiles  (for  this  Samaritan  was  no  better) '  were  not 
excluded  from  the  kingdom  of  God ;  nay  rather,  might 
obtain  a  place  in  it  before  others  who  hj  nature  and  birth 
were  children  of  the  kingdom ;    that  the  ingratitude  of 


'  Bernard  (In  Cant.  sorm.  51):  Ingratitudo  ventus  urens,  siccans  sibi 
fontem  pietatis,  roreni  misericordioe,  fluenta  gratia^.  And  he  draws  tlie 
lesson  for  us :  Disce  in  referendo  gratiam  non  esse  tardus  aut  segnis,  disce 
ad  singula  dona  gratias  agere.  Diligenter,  inquit,  considera  qu8p.  tibi 
opponantur  [Prov.  xxiii.  i],  ut  nulla  videlicet  Dei  dona  debitii  gratiarum 
actione  frustreiitur,  non  grandia,  non  mediocria,  non  pusilla.  Denique 
jubemur  colligere  fragmenta  ne  pereant,  id  est  nee  minima  beneficia 
oblivisci.     Numquid  non  perit  quod  donatur  ingrato? 

*  Calvin :  Servandi  verbum  quidam  interpretes  ad  cariiis  munditiem 
restringunt :  verum  si  ita  est,  quum  vivam  in  hoc  Samaritano  fidem  com- 
mendet  Christus,  quneri  potest  quomodo  servati  fiierint  alii  novem  ;  nam 
eadem  promiscue  omnibus  s.anitas  obtigit.  Sic  ergo  habendum  est 
Christum  hie  aliter  festimasse  donum  Dei  qnam  soleant  profani  homines, 
nempe  tanquara  salutare  paterni  amoris  symbolum  vel  pignus.  Sanati 
fuerunt  novem  leprosi,  sed  quia  Dei  gratiam  inipie  obliterant,  ipsam 
sanitatem  inlicit  et  contaminat  eorum  ingratitudo,  ut  qiiam  decebat  utilita- 
tem  ex  ea  non  percipiant.    Sola  igitur  fides  dona  Dei  nobis  sanctificat,  ut 

pura  sint,  et  cum  legitimo  usu  conjuncta  in  salutem  nobis  cedant 

Servatus  est  sua  fide  Samaritanus.  Quomodo  ?  certe  non  ideo  tantum, 
quod  jv  lepra  curatiis  sit  (nam  hoc  et  reliquis  commune  erat),  sed  quia  in 
numerum  filiorum  Dei  acceptus  est,  ut  paterni  amoris  tesserani  ex  ejus 
manu  acciperet. 

*  'AWoyfrljc;  OUT  Lord  expressly  call?  him;  and  see  mj  Notes  on  the 
Parables,  9th  edit.  p.  302. 


THE   TEN  LEPERS.  357 

these  miglit  exclude  tliem,  while  the  faith  of  those  might 
give  to  them  an  abundant  entrance  into  all  its  blessings. 

How  aptly  does  the  image  which  this  history  supplies 
set  forth  the  condition  of  the  faithful  in  this  world  !    They 
too  are  to  take  Christ's  word  that  they  will  be  cleansed, 
that  in  some  sort  they  are  so  already  (John  xv.  3) ;  for  in 
baptism  they  have  the  pledge  and  promise  and  the  initial 
act  of  it  all.     And  this  they  must  believe,  even  while  tliey 
still  feel  in  themselves  the  leprous  taint  of  sin, — must  go 
forward  in  faith,  being  confident  that  in  the  use   of  his 
Word  and  his  sacraments,  and  all  his  appointed  means  of 
grace,  slight  as  they  may  seem  to  meet  and  overcome  such 
mighty  mischiefs,  they  will  find  that  health  which  according 
to  the  sure  word  of  promise  is  in  some  soi-t  already  theirs  ; 
and  as  they  go,  believing  this  word,  using  these  means, 
they  are  healed.     And  for  them,  too,  a  warning  is  here  — 
that  they  forget  not  the  purging  of  their  old  sins  (2  Pet. 
i.  9) — nor  what  those  sins  were,  how  ugly,  how  loathsome ; 
after  the  manner  of  those  nine,  who  perhaps  did  not  return, 
as  desiring  to  obliterate  the  very  memory  of  all  which 
once  and  so  lately  they  had  been.     Let  those  who  now  are 
cleaji  through  the  word  spoken   to  them,  keep  ever  in 
memory  the  times  of  their  past  anguish, — the  times  when 
everything  seemed  defiled  to  them,  and  they  to  everything ; 
when  they  saw  themselves  as  '  unclean,  unclean,'  shut  out 
from  all  holy  fellowship  of  God  and  men,  and  cried  out  in 
their   anguish,    '  Jesus,  Master^  have   mercy  on  us.'      Let 
them  see  to  it,  that  they  forget  not  all  this ;  but  let  each 
remembrance  of  the  absolving  word  which  was  spoken  to 
them,  with  each  new  consciousness  of  a  realized  deliverance 
from  the  power  and  pollution  of  sin,  bring  them  anew  to 
the  Saviour's  feet,  giving  glory  to  God  by  Him ;  lest,  fail- 
ing in  this,  their  guilt  prove  greater  than  even  that  of 
these  unthankful  nine.     For  these  carried  away  temporal 
mercies  unacknowledged ;  but  we  should  in  such  a  case  be 
seeking  to  carry  away  spiritual;    not,    indeed,   that   we 


35^       THE  CLEANSING  OF  THE  TEN  LEPERS. 

should  succeed  in  so  doing ;  since  the  spiritual  mercy 
■which  is  not  evermore  referred  to  its  Author,  sooner  or 
later  inevitably  ceases  from  him  who  hopes  on  any  other 
conditions  to  retain  it.^ 

^  Chemnitz  (Harm.  Evang.  125):  Remittit  nos  Filius  Dei  ad  mini- 
sterium  Verbi  et  Sacramentorum  in  Ecclesia ;  et  quemadmodum  hi  sanati 
sunt  dum  iverunt,  et  niandato  Christi  obtemperarunt,  ita  et  nos  dum  in 
Ecclesia  Verbum  Dei  audimus,  absolutione  et  Sacramentis  utimur,  vult 
nobis  Christus  peccata  remittere,  nos  aanare,  ut  in  cfelesti  Jerusalem 
niundi  covara  Deo  compareamus.  .  .  .  Omnes  nati  suraus  filii  irje,  in 
baptismo  remittitur  nobis  ille  reatus,  sed  non  statim  in  cfelos  abripimur : 
verum  dicit  nobis,  Ite,  ostendite  vos  sacerdotibus.  Leve  quid  ut  videtur 
inj  unp-it.  Utut  autem  leve  sit,  sequitur  tamen  enarrabile  bonum,  quia  is 
qui  nobis  hoc  prfecipit,  est  omnipotens  Deus,  qui  ex  minimis  maxima  pro- 
ducere  potest.    Cf.  Augustine,  Qiicest.  Evang.  ii.  40. 


23-  TEE  HEALING  OF  THE  DA  UGHTER  OF  THE 
SYROPHCENICIAN  W02IAN. 

Matt.  xv.  21-28  ;  Mark  vii.  24-30. 

WE  have  no  reason  to  think  that  at  any  time  during  his 
earthly  ministry  our  Lord  overpassed  the  limits  of 
the  Holy  Land ;  not  even  when  He  '  departed  into  the  coasts 
of  Tyre  and  Sidon.'  It  was  only  '  into  the  borders  of  Tyre 
and  8idon,'  as  St.  Mark  expressly  tells  us  (vii.  24),  that 
He  went;  and  even  St.  Matthew's  words  need  not,  and 
certainly  here  do  not,  mean  more  than  that  He  approached 
the  confines  of  that  heathen  land.'  The  general  fitness  of 
things,  and  more  than  this,  his  own  express  words  on  this 
very  occasion,  '  I  am  not  sent  hut  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the 
house  of  Israel,'  combine  to  make  it  most  unlikely  that  He 
had  now  brought  his  healing  presence  to  any  other  but 
the  people  of  the  Covenant;  and,  moreover,  when  St. 
Matthew  speaks  of  the  *  woman  of  Caiman  '  as  coming  out 
of  that  district,  or  'of  the  same  coasts,*  he  clearly  shows 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  describe  the  Lord  as  having 
more  than  drawn  close  to  the  skirts  of  that  profane  land. 
Being  there.  He  *  entered  into  a  house,  and  would  have  no 
man  Icnow  it : '  but,  as  '  the  ointment  bewrayeth  itself,'  so 
He,  whose  'Name  is  like  ointment  poured  out,'  on  the 
present  occasion  '  could  not  he  hid ; '  and  among  those  at- 
tracted bv  its  sweetness  was  a  woman  of  that  country, — '  a 

*  Kuinoel  here :  In  partes  Palaestinae  regioni  Tyriorum  et  Sidonioium 
finitimas.  So  Exod.  xvi.  35  .  ti'c  /lipoc  rrjc  <totiih:r}<;  (LXX),  '  to  the  bor- 
ders of  Canaan.' 


36o  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  DAUGHTER 

woman  of  Canaan,^  as  St.  Matthew  terms  lier,  '  a  Greek,  a 
Syroplio&nician^  as  St.  Mark  has  it/  bj  the  first  term  in- 
dicating her  religion,  that  it  was  not  Jewish,  but  heathen ; 
by  the  second,  the  stock  of  wliich  she  came,  being  no  other 
than  that  accursed  race  once  doomed  of  God  to  a  total  ex- 
cision, root  and  branch  (Deut.  vii.  2),  but  of  which  some 
branches  had  been  spared  by  those  first  generations  of 
Israel  that  should  have  destroyed  all  (Judg.  ii.  2,  3). 
Everything,  therefore,  was  against  her;  3^et  this  every- 
thing did  not  prevent  her  from  drawing  nigh,  from  seek- 
ing, and  as  we  shall  presently  see  from  obtaining,  the 
boon  that  her  soul  longed  after.  She  had  heard  of  the 
mighty  works  which  the  Saviour  of  Israel  had  done :  for 
already  his  fame  had  gone  through  all  Syria ;  so  that  they 
brought  unto  Him,  besides  other  sick,  '  those  which  were 
possessed  with  devils,  and  those  which  were  lunatic,  and 
He  healed  them'  (Matt.  iv.  24).  And  she  has  a  boon  to 
ask  for  her  daughter; — or  say  rather  for  herself,  so  en- 
tirely has  she  made  her  daughter's  misery  her  own :  'Have 
merry  on  me,  0  Lord,  Thou  Son  of  David ;  my  daiighter  is 
grievously  vexed  with  a  devil ; '  just  as  on  a  later  occasion 
the  father  of  the  lunatic  child  exclaims, '  Have  compassion 
on  us,  and  help  us '  (Mark  ix.  22). 

But  she  finds  Him  very  different  from  that  which  report 
had  described  Him  to  her.  That  had  extolled  Him  as  the 
merciful  and  gracious,  not  breaking  the  bruised  reed,  nor 
quenching  the  smoking  flax,  inviting  every  weary  and 
afSicted  soul  to  draw  nigh  and  find  rest  with  Him.  He, 
who  of  Himself  had  anticipated  the  needs  of  others  (John 
V.  6),  withdrew  Himself  from  hers ;  '  He  answered  her  not  a 

*  2i/poi/,ot)'iK((7(Ta,  Ladnnanii ;  "Sli'pa  <Pott'iKiff(Ta,  Tischendorf ;  and  be- 
tween these  readings  the  best  MSS.  are  divided.  Ilvpoipoivitraa  is  very 
weakly  attested:  it  is  indeed  the  more  Greek  form,  yet  not  therefore  here 
to  be  preferred,  but  rather  the  contrary.  See  a  learned  note  by  Grotius, 
on  Matt.  XV.  22.  This  woman's  name,  according  to  the  Cleme)d{ne 
Homilies  (ii.  19),  was  Justa,  where  legends  of  her  later  life,  and  her 
passage  from  heathenism  to  Judaism,  are  to  be  found. 


OF  THE   SYROPIICENICIAN  WOMAN.  361 

word.'  '  The  Word  has  no  word;  the  fountain  is  sealed; 
the  physician  withholds  his  remedies '  (Chrysostom) ;  until 
at  last  the  disciples,  wearied  out  with  her  persistent  en- 
treaties, and  to  all  appearance  more  merciful  than  their 
Lord,  themselves  '  came  and  besought  Him,  saying,  Send  her 
away.'  Yet  was  there  in  truth  a  root  of  selfishness  out  of 
which  this  compassion  of  theirs  grew ;  for  why  is  He  to 
satisfy  her  and  dismiss  her  ?  'for  she  crieth  after  us ; '  she 
is  making  a  scene ;  she  is  drawing  on  them  unwelcome 
observation.  Theirs  is  that  heartless  granting  of  a  request, 
whereof  most  of  us  are  conscious ;  when  it  is  granted  out 
of  no  love  to  the  suppliant,  but  to  leave  undisturbed  his 
selfish  ease  from  whom  at  length  it  is  extorted, — a  granting 
such  as  his  who  gave,  but  gave  saying,  *  lest  by  her  con- 
tinual coming  she  weary  me'  (Luke  xviii.  5).  Here,  as 
so  often,  behind  a  seeming  severity  lurks  the  real  love, 
while  under  the  mask  of  a  greater  easiness  selfishness 
lies  hid. 

These  intercessors  meet  with  no  better  fortune  than  the 
suppliant  herself;  and  Christ  stops  their  mouth  with  words 
which  seem  to  set  the  seal  of  hopelessness  on  her  suit :  '  I 
am  not  sent  hut  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel '  (cf. 
Matt.  X.  5,  6).  But  in  what  sense  was  this  true?  All 
prophecy  which  went  before  declared  that  in  Him,  the 
promised  Seed,  not  one  nation  only,  but  all  nations  of  the 
earth,  should  be  blest  (Ps.  Ixxii.  11 ;  Eom.  xv.  9-12).  He 
Himself  declared,  *  Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are  not  of 
this  fold ;  them  also  I  must  bring,  and  they  shall  hear  my 
voice '  (John  x.  16).  It  has  happened  before  now  with  the 
founders  of  false  religions  that,  as  success  beckoned  them 
on,  the  circle  of  their  vision  has  widened ;  and  they  who 
meant  at  first  but  to  give  a  faith  to  their  tribe  or  nation, 
have  aspired  at  last  to  give  one  to  the  world.  But  here 
all  must  have  been  always  known ;  the  world-embracing 
reach  of  his  mission,  and  of  the  faith  which  He  should 
found,  was  contemplated  by  Christ  from  the  beginning. 


362  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  DAUGHTER 

In  what  sense  tlien,  and  under  wliat  limitations,  could  He 
say  "vvitli  truth,  '  I  am  not  sent  hut  unto  the  lost  sheep  of  the 
house  of  Israel '  ?  Clearly  it  must  he  in  his  own  personal 
ministry. »  That  ministry,  for  wise  purposes  in  the  coun- 
sels of  God,  should  be  confined  to  his  own  nation;  and 
every  departure  from  this,  the  prevailing  rule  of  his  whole 
earthly  activity,  was,  and  was  clearly  marked  as,  an  ex- 
ception. Here  and  there,  indeed,  there  were  preludes  ot 
the  larger  mercy  which  was  in  store,*  first  drops  of  that 
gracious  shower  which  should  one  day  water  the  whole 
earth  (John  xii.  20-22).  Before,  however,  the  Gentiles 
should  glorify  God  for  his  mercy.  He  must  first  be  '  a 
minister  of  the  circumcision  for  the  truth  of  God,  to  con- 
firm the  promises  made  unto  the  fathers '  (Rom.  xv.  8,  9). 
It  was  only  as  it  were  by  a  rebound  from  them  that  the 
grace  was  to  light  upon  the  heathen  world ;  while  yet  that 
issue,  which  seemed  thus  accidental,  was  laid  deep  in  the 
deej)est  counsels  of  God  (Acts  xiii.  44-49  ;  xix.  9,  10 ;  xxviii. 
25-28  ;  Rom.  xi.).  In  Christ's  reply,  as  St.  Mark  gives  it, 
'Let  the  children  first  he  filled,*  the  refusal  does  not  appear 
so  absolute  and  final,  and  a  glimpse  is  vouchsafed  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  blessing  might  yet  pass  on  to  others, 
when  as  many  of  these,  *  the  children,*  as  Avere  willing, 
should  have  accepted  it.  But  there,  too,  the  present  repulse 
is  absolute.  The  time  is  not  yet ;  others  intermeddle  not 
with  the  meal,  till  the  children  have  had  enough. 

The  woman  hears  the  repulse  which  the  disciples  who 
had  ventured  to  plead  for  her  receive ;  but  is  not  daunted 

1  Augustine  (Serm.  Ixxvii.  2) :  Hie  verhorum  istorum  oritur  qusestio : 
Unde  nos  ad  ovile  Christi  de  gentibus  venimus,  si  non  est  missus  nisi  ad 
oves  quae  perierunt  donius  Israel  P  Quid  sibi  vult  hujus  secret!  tarn  alta 
dispensatio,  ut  cum  Dominus  sciret  quare  veniret,  utique  ut  Ecclesiam 
haberet  in  omnibus  gentibus,  non  se  missum  dixerit,  nisi  ad  oves  quse 
nerierunt  domus  Israel  ?  Intelligimus  ergo  prsesentiam  corporis  sui, 
nntivitatem  suam,  exbibitionem  miraculorum,  virtutemque  resurrectionis 
in  illo  pnpulo  euni  ostendere  debuisse.  Jerome  {Co7nm.  in  Matt,  in  loc): 
Perfectani  salutem  gentium  passionis  et  resurrectionis  tempori  reservabat. 

*  Calvin :  Prseludia  quiedam  dare  voluit  communis  misericordioe. 


OF   THE   SYROPIICENICIAN  WOMAN.  363 

cr  disheartened  tliereby.  Hitherto  she  had  been  crying 
after  the  Lord,  and  at  a  distance ;  but  now,  instead  of 
being  put  still  farther  from  Him,  'came  she  and  worsliip'ped 
Him,  saying,  Lord,  help  me.'  On  this  He  breaks  the  silence 
which  hitherto  He  has  maintained  towards  her ;  but  it  is 
with  an  answer  more  discomfoi*table  than  was  even  the 
silence  itself:  '  lie  answered  and  said.  It  is  not  meet  to  tahe 
the  children's  hread,^  and  to  cast  it  to  dogs.*  '  The  children ' 
are,  of  course,  the  Jews,  '  the  children  of  the  kingdom ' 
(cf.  Matt.  viii.  12).  He  who  spoke  so  sharply  to  them, 
speaks  thus  honourably  of  them  ;  nor  is  there  any  contra- 
diction in  this :  for  here  He  is  speaking  of  the  position 
which  God  has  given  them  in  his  kingdom ;  there,  of  the 
manner  in  which  they  have  realized  that  position.  On  the 
other  hand,  extreme  contempt  was  involved  in  the  title  of 
*  c?0(/ '  ^  given  to  any  one,  the  nobler  characteristics  of  this 
animal,  although  by  no  means  unknown  to  antiquity,  being 
never  brought  out  in  Scripture  (see  Deut.  xxiii.  1 8 ;  Job 
XXX.  I  ;  I  Sam.  xvii.  43  ;  xxiv.  14  ;  2  Sam.  iii.  8  ;  ix.  8  ;  xvi. 
9  ;  2  Kin.  viii.  13  ;  Isai.  Ixvi.  3  ;  Matt.  vii.  6  ;  Phil.  iii.  2 ; 
Rev.  xxii.  15). 

There  are  very  few  for  whom  this  would  not  have  been 
enough ;  few  who,  even  if  they  had  persevered  thus  far, 


^  Maldonatus:  Habent  canes  panem  suum  minus  delicatum,  quam 
fjlii ;  res  naturales,  Sol,  Luna,  pluvia,  et  cetera  idem  genus  canuiu,  id  est 
Gentilium,  panis  sunt;  quoe  providentia  quidem  Dei,  sed  generali  minus- 
que  accurata  dispensantur,  et  omnibus  in  commune,  sicut  porcis  glandes, 
projiciuntur  :  Evangelica  gratia,  quse  supra  naturam  est,  panis  est  filiorma 
non  projiciendus  temere,  sed  niajore  consilio  rationeque  distribuendus. 

*  Many,  as  Maldonatus,  find  n  further  aggravation  of  the  contempt  in 
the  KVfapi'iic  (catellis,  Vulg.),  not  even  dogs,  but  whelps.  But  Olshausen, 
more  justly,  that  in  the  diminutive  lies  a  slight  mitigation  of  the  excead- 
ing  severity  of  the  repulse  ;  though  the  author  of  an  article  in  the  Theul. 
Stud,  tmd  Krit.  1870,  p.  135  on  this  miracle,  pushes  this  view  further 
and  builds  more  upon  it  than  the  liicts  will  wnrrant.  Calvin  brings  out 
well  the  force  of  the  jiaXtlv.  Projiciendi  verbo  utitur  significando  non 
bene  locaii,  quod  Ecclesise  Dei  ablatum  profanis  hominibus  vulgatur. 
Clarius  exprimitur  consilium  Chiisti  apud  Marcum  vii.  27,  ubi  habetur, 
Sine  prius  saturari  tilios.  Nam  Cananfeam  admonet  prpepostere  facerp,. 
quae  velut  in  media  coena  in  mensam  iuvolat. 

24 


364  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  DAUGHTER 

would  not  now  at  length  have  turned  away  in  anger  or 
despair.  Not  so,  however,  this  heathen  woman  ;  she,  like 
the  Eoman  centurion  (Matt.  viii.  8),  and  under  circum- 
stances infinitely  more  trying  than  his,  is  mighty  in  faith ; 
and  from  the  very  word  which  seems  to  make  most  against 
her,  draws  with  the  ready  wit  of  faith  an  argument  in  her 
own  behalf.  She  entangles  the  Lord,  Himself  most  willing 
to  be  so  entangled,  in  his  own  speech ;  she  takes  the  sword 
out  of  his  own  hand,  with  which  to  overcome  Him :  ^ 
'  Truths  Lord:  yet  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fall  from 
their  masters^  tahle.^  Upon  these  words  Luther,  who  has 
dwelt  on  all  the  circumstances  of  this  little  history  with  a 
peculiar  love,  and  is  never  weary  of  extolling  the  mighty 
faith  of  this  woman,  exclaims,  '  Was  not  that  a  master- 
stroke ?  she  snares  Christ  in  his  own  words.'  And  often- 
times he  sets  this  Canaanitish  woman  before  troubled  and 
fainting  hearts,  that  they  may  learn  from  her  how  to 
wring  a  Yea  from  God's  Nay;  or,  rather,  learn  how  to 
hear  the  deep-hidden  Yea,  which  many  times  lurks  under 
his  seeming  Nay.  '  Like  her,  thou  must  give  God  right  in 
all  He  says  against  thee,  and  yet  must  not  stand  off  from 
praying,  till  thou  overcomest  as  she  overcame,  till  thou 
hast  turned  the  very  charges  made  against  thee  into 
arguments  and  proofs  of  thy  need,  till  thou  too  hast  taken 
Christ  in  his  own  words.' 

The  rendering  of  her  answer  in  our  Version  is  not, 
however,  altogether  satisfactory.  For,  indeed,  she  accepts 
the  Lord's  declaration,  not  immediately  to  make  exception 
against  the  conclusion  which  He  draws  from  it,  but  to 
show  how  in  that  very  declaration  is  involved  the  granting 
of  her  petition.^     *  Saidest  Thou  dogs  ?  it  is  well ;  I  accept 

^  Corn,  a  Lapide  :  Christum  suis  verbis  irretit,  comprehendit^  et  capit. 
Piationera  contra  se  factam  in  ipsum  leniter  retorquet. 

*  There  is  nothing  adversative  in  K-ai  7ap=etenim  (see  Passow),  to 
justify  the  'yet'  of  our  Version,  or  the  'nevertheless'  of  Tyndale's. 
AN'iclif,  Crannier,  and  the  Rhemish  Version  have  the  right  transhition ; 
30  too  the   Geneva:    'Truth,   Lord,  for  indeed  the  whelps  eat  of  the 


OF   THE  SYROPIirENICIAN  WOMAN.  365 

die  title  and  the  place  ;  for  the  dogs  have  a  portion  of  the 
meal, — not  the  first,  not  the  children's  portion,  but  a 
portion  still, — the  crumbs  which  fall  from  the  masters' 
table.  In  this  very  putting  of  the  case,  Thou  bringest  us 
heathen.  Thou  bringest  me,  within  the  circle  of  the  blessings 
which  God,  the  great  householder,  is  ever  dispensing  to 
his  family.  We  also  belong  to  his  household,  though  we 
occupy  but  the  lowest  place  therein.^  According  to  thine 
own  showing,  I  am  not  wholly  an  alien,  and  therefore  I 
will  abide  by  this  name,  and  will  claim  all  which  in  it  is 
included.'  By  the  '  masters '  she  does  not  intend  the  Jews, 
which  is  the  mistake  of  Chrysostom  and  many  more  ;  "^  for 
thus  the  whole  image  would  be  deranged  and  disturbed— 
they  are  *  the  children ' — but  the  great  Heavenly  house- 
holder Himself.  She  uses  the  plural,  '  masters,''  to  corre- 
spond with  the  plural,  *  dogs,'  which  Christ  had  used  just 

crumbs;'  as  the  Vulgate:  Etiani,  Domiue,  nam  et  catelli  edunt.  So  De 
Wette:  Ja,  Herr!  denn  es  essen  ja  die  Hunde.  Maldonatus,  always 
acute,  and  with  merits  as  an  interpreter,  which,  setting  apart  his  bitter 
polemical  spirit,  deserve  the  highest  recognition,  has  exactly  caught  the 
meaning  here  :  Hoc  est  quod  volo,  me  esse  canem,  nam  et  catelli  comedunt 
de  micis  qufie  cadunt  de  mensa  dominorum  suorum. — The  '  crumbs '  are 
more  than  the  accidental  offal  from  the  table :  it  was  common  at  meals  to 
use,  instead  of  a  napkin,  the  softer  parts  of  the  bread  (a7ro/iayfa\ui), 
which  were  afterwards  thrown  to  the  dogs  ;  Eustathius  :  V.'g  0  r«(.'  xf^pff 
uiroimTTOfiiVDi,  tira  Kvmv  tjinWov  (see  Becker,  Charicles,  vol.  i.  p.  431). 

^  Thauler,  on  these  words  {Ilomil.  p.  162):  Felices  nimiura  vereque 
beatos,  qui  hoc  pacto  ad  ipsissimum  veritatis  fundum  pertiugere  possent, 
ita  ut  nee  Dominus  Deus  nee  creaturoe  omnes  tantum  eos  dejicere,  vili- 
peudere,  et  deprimere  possent,  quam  ipsi  in  veritate  sese  multo  amplius 
intra  se  absque  fictione  dejicerent,  vilipenderent,  deprimerentque ;  nee 
tantum  eis  vel  Deus  vel  creaturse  deuegare,  aut  adeo  eos  repellere  et 
dejicere  valerent,  quin  semper  stabiles  perseverarent,  plenaque  cum  fiducici 
magis  ac  magis  Deo  propinquare  niterentur;  et  studium  denique  atque 
conatum  suum  non  solum  non  remitterent,  sed  intenderent  etiani  et 
augerent,  instar  feminte  hujus,  cui  quam  vis  dure  Dominus  loqueretur, 
ipsa  tamen  minime  cessit,  nee  quidquam  fiducise  illius  deposuit,  quam  erga 
divinam  gerebat  gratiam ;  ideoque  tandem  quod  voluit  adepta  est,  et 
quicquid  postularat  a  Domino  plenissime  obtinuit. 

-  So  Ludolphus  (Vita  Jesu  Christi,  pars  i*,  c.  89):  Vide  mulieris 
patientiara  et  humilitatem.  Deus  enim  vocat  Judseos  filios,  et  iUa 
dominos ;  nee  doluit  de  inimicoruni  laudibus,  nee  de  sue  molestata  est 
convitio. 


366  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  DAUGHTER 

before  ;  compare  '  sons  '  to  correspond  with  '  kings  '  at 
Matt.  xvii.  26 ;  wliile  yet  it  is  tlie  one  Son  only,  the  Only- 
begotten  of  the  Father,  who  is  intended  there.  ^  He  who 
fills  all  things  living  with  plenteousness  spreads  a  table  for 
all  flesh  ;  and  all  that  depend  on  Him  are  satisfied  from  it, 
each  in  his  own  order  and  place,  -the  children  at  the  table, 
and  the  dogs  beneath  it.  There  lies  in  her  statement 
something  like  the  Prodigal's  petition,  '  Make  me  as  one 
of  thy  hired  servants, — a  recognition  of  diverse  relations, 
some  closer,  some  more  distant,  in  which  divers  persons 
stand  to  God, — yet  all  blest,  who,  whether  in  a  nearer  or 
remoter  station,  receive  their  meat  from  Him. 

She  has  conquered  at  last.  She,  who  before  heard  only 
those  words  of  a  seeming  contempt,  now  hears  words  of  a 
most  gracious  commendation, — words  whose  like  are  ad- 
dressed but  to  one  other  in  all  the  Gospel  history  :  '  0 
woman,  great  is  thy  faith  ! '  He  who  showed  at  first  as 
though  He  would  have  denied  her  the  smallest  boon,  now 
opens  to  her  the  full  treasure-house  of  his  grace,  and  bids 
her  to  help  herself,  to  carry  away  what  she  will :  '  Be  it 
unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt.' '  He  had  shown  to  her  for  a 
while,  as  Joseph  showed  to  his  brethren,  the  aspect  of 
severity ;  but,  like  Joseph,  He  could  not  maintain  it  long ; 
— or  rather  He  would  not  maintain  it  an  instant  longer 
than  was  needful,  and  after  that  word  of  hers,  that  mighty 
word  of  an  undaunted  faith,  it  was  needful  no  more  :  '  Fo'r 
this  saying  go  thy  way  ;  the  devil  is  gone  out  of  thy  daughter.' 

1  Maldonatus:  Loquitur  pluraliter  propter  canes,  quorum  suum  quisque 
dominum  habet. 

'  Luther  {Enarr.  in  Gen.  xxxii.  27)  :  Fuitprofecto  pulcLerrima  etpvaj- 
clara  tides,  et  insigne  exemplum  quod  nionstrat  rationem  et  artificium 
luctandi  cum  Deo.  Non  enim  ad  primura  ictum  abjicere  statim  animum 
et  omuem  spem  debemus,  sed  instandum,  orandum,  quaerendum,  pulsan- 
dum  est.  Et  ut  maxime  fugam  meditetur,  tamen  tu  ne  cessa,  sed  sectare 
sedulo  perinde  ut  mulier  Cananoea  faciebat,  quam  non  poterat  latere 
Christu-s,  sed  intravit,  inquit  Marcus  (vii.  25),  in  doraum,  et  procidit  ad 
pedes  ejus.  Si  enim  in  dorao  se  abdit  in  cubiculum,  nee  vult  ciiiquam 
patefieri  nditum,  ne  recedas  tamen,  sed  sequere.  Si  non  vult  audire, 
pulsa  fores  cubiculi,  obstrepe.  Id  enim  e^-fc  summum  sacrilicium,  non 
cessare  orando  et  q^userendo,  donee  vincamus  ipsum. 


OF  THE  SYROPIKENICIAN  IVOMAN.  367 

Like  the  centurion  at  Capernaum  (Matt.  viii.  13),  like 
the  nobleman  at  Cana  (John  iv.  53),  she  made  proof  that 
his  word  was  as  potent,  spoken  far  off  as  near.  She 
offered  in  her  faith  a  channel  of  communication  between 
her  distant  child  and  Christ.  With  one  hand  of  that  faith 
she  laid  hold  on  Him  in  whom  all  healing  grace  was 
stored,  with  the  other  on  her  suffering  daughter, — herself 
a  living  conductor  bj  which  the  power  of  Christ  might 
run,  like  an  electric  flash,  from  Him  to  the  object  of  her 
love.  *  And  when  she  vjas  come  to  her  house,  she  found  the 
devil  gone  out,  and  her  daughter  laid  upon  the  bed,'  weak 
and  exhausted,  as  these  last  words  would  imply,  from  the 
paroxysms  of  the  spirit's  going  out ; — unless,  indeed,  they 
indicate  that  she  was  now  taking  that  quiet  rest,  which 
hitherto  her  condition  had  not  allowed.  It  will  then 
answer  to  the  '  clothed  and  in  his  right  mind '  (Luke  viii. 
35)  of  another  who  had  been  similarly  tormented. 

The  question  remains,  Why  this  anguish  was  not  spared 
her,  ivhy  the  Lord  should  have  presented  Himself  under  so 
different  an  aspect  to  her,  and  to  most  other  suppliants  ? 
Sometimes  He  anticipated  their  needs,  '  Wilt  thou  be 
made  whole  ? '  (John  v.  6)  ;  or  if  not  so.  He  who  was 
waiting  to  be  gracious  required  not  to  be  twice  asked  for 
his  blessings.  Why  was  it  that  in  this  case,  to  use  the 
words  of  an  old  divine,  Christ  '  stayed  long,  wrestling  with 
her  faith,  and  shaking  and  trying  whether  it  were  fast- 
rooted  '  or  no  ?  Doubtless  because  He  saw  in  it  a  faith 
which  would  stand  the  proof,  knew  that  she  would  emerge 
victorious  from  this  sore  trial ;  and  not  only  so,  but  with  a 
mightier  and  purer  faith  than  if  she  had  borne  away  her 
blessing  at  once  and  merely  for  the  asking.  Now  she  has 
learned,  as  then  she  never  could  have  learned,  '  that  men 
ought  always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint ; '  that  when  God 
delays  a  boon.  He  does  not  therefore  deny  it.  She  has 
learned  the  lesson  which  Moses  must  have  learned,  when 
*  the  Lord  met  him,  and  sought  to  kill  him '  (Exod.  iv.  24) ; 


368  THE  HEALING   OF  THE  DAUGHTER 

she  has  won  the  strength  which  Jacob  won  from  his 
wrestling,  till  the  day  broke,  with  the  Angel.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  remarkable  resemblance  between  this  history 
and  that  of  Jacob  (Gen.  xxxii.  24-32).  There,  as  here,  we 
note  the  same  persevering  struggle  on  the  one  side,  the 
same  persevering  refusal  on  the  other ;  there,  as  here,  the 
stronger  is  at  last  overcome  by  the  weaker.  God  HimseK 
yields  to  the  might  of  faith  and  prayer;  for  a  later 
prophet,  interpreting  that  mysterious  struggle,  tells  us  the 
weapons  which  the  patriarch  wielded :  *  he  wept  and  ma.de 
supplication  unto  Him,'  connecting  with  this  the  fact  that 
'he  had  power  over  the  Angel,  and  prevailed'  (Hos.  xii.  3, 4). 
The  two  histories,  indeed,  only  stand  out  in  their  full  re- 
semblance, when  we  keep  in  mind  that  the  Angel  there, 
the  Angel  of  the  Covenant,  was  no  other  than  that  Word, 
who,  now  incarnate,^  '  blest '  this  woman  at  last,  as  He 
had  blest  at  length  Jacob  at  Peniel, — in  each  case  so 
rewarding  a  faith  which  had  said,  *  I  will  not  let  Thee  go, 
except  Thou  bless  me.' 

Yet,  when  we  thus  speak  of  man  overcoming  God,  we 
must  never,  of  course,  for  an  instant  lose  sight  of  this, 
that  the  power  whereby  he  overcomes  the  resistance  of 
God,  is  itself  a  power  supplied  hy  God.  All  that  is  man's 
is  the  faith,  or  the  emptiness  of  self,  with  the  hunger  after 
God,  which  enables  him  to  appropriate  and  make  so 
largely  his  own  the  fulness  and  power  of  God ;  so  that 
here  also  that  word  comes  true,  '  Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit ;  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  Thus  when 
St.  Paul  speaks  of  himself  under  an  image  which  rested 
originally  on  Jacob's  struggle,  if  there  was  not  a  direct 
allusion  to  it  in  the  Apostle's  mind,  as  striving  for  the 
Colossians   (Col.  i.   29),  striving,'^  that   is,  with  God  in 

'  This  has  been  doubted  by  some  ;  but  see  the  younger  Vitringa,  Dhs. 
de  Lvctd  Jacobi,  p.  1 8,  seq.,  in  his  Diss.  Sac. ;  and  Deyling,  Obss.  Sac. 
p.  827,  seq. 

'^  Aywi'ii^o/tnot- :  cf.  Col.  ii.  I,  where  Grotius  says  rightly,  Per  dywva 
intelligit  non  sollicitudinem  tan  turn,  sed  preces  assiduas. 


OF  THE  SYROPHCENICIAN  WOMAN.  369 

prayer  (see  iv.  12),  he  immediately  adds,  'according  to  his 
worlving,  which  worketh  in  me  mightily.' 

"We  may  observe,  in  conclusion,  that  we  have  three 
ascending  degrees  of  faith,  as  it  manifests  itself  in  the 
breaking  through  hindrances  which,  would  keep  from 
Christ,  in  the  paralytic  (Mark  ii.  4) ;  in  the  blind  man  at 
Jericho  (Mark  x.  48) ;  and  in  this  woman  of  Canaan.  The 
paralytic  broke  through  the  outward  hindrances,  the  ob- 
stacles of  things  merely  external ;  blind  Bartimrens  through 
the  hindrances  opposed  by  his  fellow-men  ;  but  this  w^onian. 
more  heroically  than  all,  through  apparent  hindrances 
even  from  Christ  Himself. ,  These,  in  all  their  seeming 
weakness,  were  yet  as  three  mighty  ones,  not  of  David, 
but  of  David's  Son  and  Lord,  who  forced  their  way  through 
opposing  hosts,  until  they  could  draw  living  water  from 
wells  of  salvation  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  16), 


Z4.  THE  HEALING   OF  ONE  DEAF  AND  DUMB. 

Mark  vii.  31-37. 

ST.  MATTHEW  tells  us  in  general  terms  that  when  the 
Lord  had  returned  from  those  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Si- 
don  unto  the  sea  of  Galilee,  *  great  multitudes  came  unto 
Him,  having  with  them  those  that  were  lame,  blind,  dumb, 
maimed,'  and  many  others,  and  cast  them  down  at  Jesus' 
feet,  and  He  healed  them  '  (xv.  30).  Out  of  this  number 
of  cures  St.  Mark  selects  one  to  relate  more  in  detail,  and 
this,  no  doubt,  because  it  was  signalized  by  some  circum- 
stances not  usual  in  other  like  cases  of  healing.  '  They 
bring  unto  Him  one  that  was  deaf  and  had  an  imjyediment  in 
his  speech,*  one  who,  if  he  was  not  altogether  dumb,  was 
yet  incapable  of  making  any  articulate  sounds.^     His  case 

1  KvWog,  properly,  crippled  or  maimed  in  the  hand,  as  Jerome  (in  loc.) 
observes :  Quomodo  claudus  dicitur,  qui  uno  claudicat  pede,  sic  kvWoi; 
appellatur,  qui  unam  mMnum  debilem  habet.  Nos  proprietatem  hujus 
verbi  non  liabemus.  We  also  have  no  one  equivalent  word.  It  is  the 
Italian  monco.  At  Matt,  xviii.  8  it  is  evidently  '  mniiJied  of  the  hand,' 
but  does  not  here  mean  so  much  ;  for  though,  of  course,  it  lay  in  Christ's 
power  to  supply  a  lost  limb,  yet  we  nowhere  meet  a  miracle  of  this  kind, 
neither  should  we  expect  to  meet  such ;  for  He  was  come  now,  a  Re- 
deemer, that  is  a  setter  free  of  man  in  his  body  and  in  his  soul  from  alien 
powers  which  held  him  in  bondage — but  not  a  Creator.  Even  in  his 
miracles  which  approach  nearest  to  creation,  He  ever  assumes  a  substratum 
on  which  to  work.  It  is  no  limitation  of  this  divine  power  of  Christ,  to 
Buppose  that  it  had  thus  a  law  according  to  which  it  wrought,  and  beyond 
which  it  did  not  extend ;  for  this  law  is  only  the  law  of  infinite  fitness 
which  it  received  from  itself. 

*  Some  make  /wyAaXog  here  mute,  chiefly  on  account  of  the  iiXcWcvi;  of 
ver.  37  ;  and  refer  to  Isai.  xxxv.  6  (LXX),  Tpavi}  Sk  iaTui  yXunoa  ^ioyi\d\wv, 
in  proof;  as  also  to  Exod,  iv.  11,  where,  though  not  the  Septuagint,  yet 
the  three  other  Greek  translations  use  this  word  in  the  sense  of  dumb. 
Yet  the  tXi'iXci  opOt'igoi  ver.  3  j  favours  the  meaning  which  the  word  more 


HEALING   OF  ONE  DEAF  AND  DUMB.        371 

differs,  apparentl}^  from  that  of  the  dumb  man  mentioned 
Matt.  ix.  32  ;  for  while  that  man's  evil  is  traced  up  dis- 
tinctly and  directly  to  a  spiritual  source,  nothing  of  the 
kind  is  intimated  here,  nor  are  we,  as  Theophylact  suggests, 
to  presume  such.  Him  his  friends  now  brought  to  the  great 
Healer,  '  and  they  beseech  Him  to  put  his  hand  upon  him.' 
But  lii  is  not  exactly  in  this  way  that  He  will  heal  him. 

It  has  been  already  observed,  that  there  must  lie  a  deep 
meaning  in  all  the  variations  which  mark  the  different 
healings  of  different  sick  and  afflicted,  a  wisdom  of  God 
ordering  all  the  circumstances  of  each  particular  cure. 
Were  we  acquainted  as  accurately  as  He,  who  '  knew  what 
was  in  man,'  with  the  spiritual  condition  of  each  who  was 
brought  within  the  circle  of  his  grace,  we  should  then 
perfectly  understand  why  one  was  healed  in  the  crowd, 
another  led  out  of  the  city  ere  the  work  of  restoration  was 
commenced ;  why  for  one  a  word  effected  a  cure,  for 
another  a  touch,  while  a  third  was  sent  to  wash  in  the  pool 
of  Siloam  ere  '  he  came  seeing ; '  why  for  this  one  the  pro- 
cess of  restoration  was  instantaneous,  while  another  saw  at 
first  '  men  as  trees,  walking.'  We  are  not  for  an  instant 
to  suppose  in  cures  gradually  accomplished  any  restraint 
on  the  power  of  the  Lord,  save  such  as  He  willingly  im- 
posed on  Himself, — and  this,  doubtless,  in  each  case  having 
reference  to,  and  being  explicable  by,  the  moral  and  spiri- 
tual state  of  the  person  who  was  passing  under  his  hands. 
It  is  true  that  our  ignorance  prevents  us  from  at  once  and 
in  every  case  discerning  '  the  manifold  wisdom '  which 
ordered  each  of  his  proceedings,  but  we  are  not  less  sure 
that  this  wisdom  ordered  them  all.* 


naturally  suggests,  and  our  Translation  has  given.  lie  was  i^pncvyXujrrffoc, 
ayKv\6y\iorrn(>c,  balbutiens,  could  make  no  intelligible  sounda ;  but  was 
not  absolutely  dumb ;  cf.  Isai.  xxxii.  4  (LXX)  :  a'l  yAwtcai  a'l  -^tWuGwrai. 
1  Maldonatus :  Videtur  etiam  voluisse  Christus  non  semper  pequaliter 
6uam  divinitatera  potentiamque  declarare,  quod  non  semper,  etianisi  nos 
causa  lateat,  convenire  jiidicaret.  Aliquando  solo  verbo  dfemoiies  ejicit, 
mortuos  exsuscitat,  ostendens  so  cmuino  esse  Deum;   aliquando  tactu, 


372  THE  HEALING   OF 

On  tlie  present  occasion  He  first  '  tooh  him  aside  from 
the  multitude' ^\h.o-m  He  yvo\Adi  lieal ;  compare  Mark  viii. 
23  :  '  He  took  the  blind  man  by  the  hand,  and  led  him  out 
of  the  town.'  But  with  what  intent  does  He  isolate  him 
thus  ?  The  Greek  Fathers  generally  reply,  for  the  avoid- 
ing of  ail  show  and  ostentation.  But  this  cannot  be,  since 
of  all  the  miracles  which  He  did,  we  have  only  two  in 
which  any  such  withdrawal  is  recorded.  Shall  we  say  that 
there  was  show  and  ostentation  in  all  the  others  ?  It  is 
not  much  better  to  answer,  with  Calvin,  that  He  might  pray 
with  greater  freedom.'  He,  whose  life  was  altogether 
prayer,  needed  not  solitude  for  this.  His  purpose  was, 
rather,  that  the  man  apart  from  the  tumult  and  interrup- 
tions of  the  crowd,  in  solitude  and  silence,  might  be  more 
receptive  of  deep  and  lasting  impressions  ;  even  as  the  same 
Lord  does  now  oftentimes  lead  a  soul  apart,  sets  it  in  the 
solitude  of  a  sick  chamber,  or  in  loneliness  of  spirit,  or 
takes  away  from  it  earthly  companions  and  friends,  when 
He  would  speak  with  it,  and  heal  it.  He  takes  it  aside, 
as  He  took  this  deaf  and  dumb  out  of  the  multitude,  that 
in  the  hush  of  the  world's  din  it  may  listen  to  Him  ;  as  on 
a  greater  scale  He  took  his  elect  people  aside  into  the 
wilderness,  when  He  would  first  open  their  spiritual  ear, 
and  deliver  unto  them  his  law. 

Having  this  done,  Christ  '  jpid  his  finger  into  his  ears,  and 
He  spit  and  touched  his  tongue.'  These  are  symbolic  ac- 
tions, which  it  is  easy  to  see  why  He  should  have  em- 
ployed in  the  case  of  one  afflicted  as  this  man  was ; — 
almost  all  other  avenues  of  communication,  save  these  of 
sight  and  feeling,  were  of  necessity  closed.  Christ  by 
these  signs  would  awaken  his  faith,  and  stir  up  in  him  the 
lively  expectation  of  a  blessing.  The  fingers  are  put  into 
the  ears  as  to  bore  them,  to  pierce  through  the  obstacles 

saliva,  Into,  sanat  fegrotos,  accommodans  quodammodo  potentiam  suam 
ad  nioduni  agendi  causarum  naturalium,  et  ad  sensum  et  consuetiidinem 
hominiim. 

*  Ut  precaudi  ardorem  liberius  efFundat. 


ONE   DEAF  AND   DUMB.  373 

which  hindered  sounds  from  reaching  the  seat  of  hearing. 
This  was  the  fountain-evil ;  he  did  not  spcah  plainly,  be- 
cause he  did  not  hear;  this  defect,  therefore,  is  first  re- 
moved.' Then,  as  often  through  excessive  dryness  the 
tongue  cleaves  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  the  Lord  gives 
here,  in  what  next  He  does,  the  sign  of  the  removal  of  this 
evil,  of  the  unloosing  of  the  tongue.  And,  at  the  same 
time,  the  healing  virtue  He  shows  to  reside  in  his  own  body ; 
He  looks  not  for  it  from  any  other  quarter  ;  but  with  the 
moisture  of  his  own  mouth  upon  his  finger  touched  the 
tongue  which  He  would  release  from  the  bands  which  held 
it  fast  (cf.  John  ix.  6).  It  is  not  for  its  medicinal  virtue 
that  use  is  made  of  this,  but  as  the  apt  symbol  of  a  power 
residing  in,  and  going  forth  from,  his  body.^ 

St.  Mark,  abounding  as  he  does  in  graphic  touches,  re- 
producing before  our  eyes  each  scene  which  he  narrates, 
tells  us  of  the  Lord,  how  this  doing,  '  and  loohing  up  to 
heaven,  He  sighed.'  He  has  further  preserved  for  us  the 
very  word  which  He  spake,  in  the  very  language  in  which 
He  spake  it;  He  ' saith  unto  him,  Ephphatha,  that  is.  Be 
opened.'  The  '  loohing  up  to  heaven  '  was  a  claiming  of  the 
divine  help ;  or  rather,  since  the  fulness  of  divine  power 
abode  permanently  in  Him,  and  not  by  fitful  visitation  as 
in  others,  an  acknowledgment  of  his  oneness  with  the 
Father,  and  that  He  did  no  other  things  save  those  which 
He  saw  the  Father  do  (cf.  Matt.  xiv.  19  ;  John  xi.  41,  42). 
Some  explain  the  words  '  He  sighed,'  or  '  He  groaried,' 
which  are  the  words  in  the  Rhemish  Version,  as  the  deep 
voice  of  prayer  in  which  He  was  at  the  moment  engaged ; 
but  rather  we  suppose  that  this  poor  helpless  creature  now 

^  Grotius :  Srepe  Cliristus  externo  aliquo  signo  inadspectabilem  effica- 
ciam  velut  spectandam  exhibebat.  Ita  digitis  in  aures  imniissis,  irriga- 
taque  lingua,  testatum  fecit  se  eum  esse  cujus  vi  clausi  meatus  quasi 
perterebrarentur,  et  lingua  palato  adhferescens  motum  reciiperaret. 

^  Grotius:  Nee  alio  hoc  referendum  mihi  videtur  quam  quo  superiora, 
ut  boo  quoque  indicio  ostenderetur  ab  ipso  Jesu  prodiisse  banc  salutiferam 
virtutem,  cum  nibil  admotum  esset  aflecto  corpori,  prteter  ipsa  quteipsius 
Jesu  erant  propria. 


374  THE  HEALING  OF 

brou<jlit  before  Him,  this  living  proof  of  the  wreck  -which 
sin  had  brought  about,  of  the  malice  of  the  devil  in  deform- 
ing the  fair  features  of  God's  original  creation,  then  wrung 
that  groan  from  his  heart.  He  that  always  felt,  was  yet 
now  in  his  human  soul  touched  with  a  liveliest  sense  of  the 
miseries  of  the  race  of  man.'  Thus  on  another  still  greater 
occasion,  '  He  groaned  in  the  spirit  and  was  troubled ' 
(John  xi.  33),  with  a  trouble  which  had  in  like  manner  its 
source  in  the  thought  of  the  desolation  which  sin  and  death 
had  effected.  As  there  the  mourning  hearts  which  were 
before  Him  were  but  a  sampler  of  the  mourners  of  all  times 
and  all  places,  so  was  this  poor  man  of  all  the  variously 
afflicted  and  greatly  suffering  children  of  Adam.'^  In 
the  preservation  of  the  actual  Aramaic  '  Ephphatha,' 
which  Christ  spoke,  as  in  the  '  Talitha  cumi '  of  Mark  v. 
14,  we  recognize  the  narrative  of  an  eye  and  ear-witness. 
It  is  quite  in  this  Evangelist's  manner  to  give  the  actual 
Aramaic  words  which  Christ  used,  but  adding  in  each 
case  their  interpretation  (iii.  17;  v.  41;  vii.  11;  xiv. 
36  ;  XV.  34  ;  cf.  X.  46  ;  xv.  22).  He  derived,  as  there  can 
be  little  doubt,  his  account  from  St.  Peter,  on  whose  me- 
mory the  words  of  power,  which  opened  the  ears,  and  loosed 
the  tongue,  and  raised  the  dead,  had  indelibly  impressed 
themselves.' 

'  Clirysostom  (in  Cramer,  Catmd):  Tj/j/  tov  avOpw-Kov  cvmv  tXtwi'  ttg 
TToTai'  raniit'ujrnv  yyayfv  tcivtijv  o  ti  fiiauicciXog  ^ia/3oXof,  Kai  7)  rwv  TrpuiTO- 
irXdn-MV  cnrpont^ia. 

^  In  the  exquisite  poem  in  The  Christian  Year  wliich  these  words  have 
euggested,  this  sigh  is  somewhat  differently  understood : 

'  The  deaf  may  hear  the  Saviour's  voice, 
The  fetter'd  tongue  its  chain  may  break ; 
But  the  deaf  heart,  the  dumb  by  choice. 
Tlie  laffsrard  soul  that  will  not  wake, 
The  guiit  that  scorns  to  be  foreiven  ; — 
These  baffle  even  the  spella  ol  Heaven; 
In  thought  of  these  hi.s  brows  benisTi, 
Not  even  in  healing,  cloudless  shine.' 

'  Grotius:  Ilfec  autem  vox  ^>//;>/irt^^a  simul  cum  saliva  et  tactu  aurium 
ac  linguEE  ex  hoc  Christi  facto  ad  Baptisnii  ritus  postea  translata  sunt,  ut 


OI^E  DEAF  AND  DUMB.  375 

The  injunction,  'He  charged  them  that  they  should  tell  no 
man,'  implies  that  the  friends  of  this  afflicted  man  had 
accompanied  or  followed  Jesus  out  of  the  crowd,  and 
having  been  witnesses  of  the  cure,  were  now  included  with 
him  in  the  same  command  that  they  should  not  divulge 
what  had  been  done.  On  the  reasons  which  induced  the 
Lord  so  often  to  give  this  charge  of  silence  something  has 
been  said  already.  On  this,  as  on  other  occasions  (see 
Matt.  ix.  31  ;  Mark  i.  44,  45),  the  charge  is  nothing  re- 
garded by  those  on  whom  it  is  laid ;  '  the  more  He  charged 
them,  so  much  the  more  a  great  deal  they  published  it.'  The 
exclamation  in  which  men's  surprise  and  admiration  finds 
utterance,  '  He  hath  done  all  things  well,'  reminds  us  of 
the  words  of  the  first  creation  {Gen.  i.  31 '),  upon  which  we 
are  thus  not  unsuitably  thrown  back,  for  Christ's  work  is 
in  the  highest  sense  '  a  new  creation.'  The  concluding 
notice,  '  They  glorified  the  God  of  Israel,'  implies  that 
many  of  those  present  were  heathens,  as  we  should  natu- 
rally expect  in  that  half-hellenized  region  of  Decapolis, 
where  this  miracle  was  wrought,  and  that  these,  beholding 
the  mighty  works  which  were  done,  confessed  that  the 
God  who  had  chosen  Israel  for  his  own  possession  was 
above  all  gods. 

signiticaretur  non  minus  interna  mentis  impedimenta  tcplli  per  Spirikim 
Christ!,  quam  in  istohomine  sublata  fuerant  sensuum  impedimenta.  Nam 
et  cor  dicitur  ('(rtr()ivfi63i,  Act.  xvi.  14.  Imo  et  cordi  am'es  tribuuntur. 
The  rite  to  which  Grotius  refers  survives  only  in  the  Church  of  Rome. 
The  touching  by  the  priest  of  the  nostrils  and  ears  of  one  about  to  be 
baptized,  with  moisture  from  his  mouth,  had  its  origin  here ;  as  is  indi- 
cated by  the  Epheta,  which  he  used  at  the  same  time.  Ambrose  addresses 
the  catechumens  thus  {De  Init.  1):  Aperite  igitur  aures,  et  bonum 
odorem  vitse  letemffi  inhalatum  vobis  munere  sacramentorum  carpite, 
quod  vobis  signilieavimus,  cum  apertionis  celebrantes  my»terium  diceremus 
Epheta,  quod  est,  Adaperire ;  ut  venturus  unusquisque  ad  gratiam,  quid 
interrogaretur  cognosceret,  quid  responderet,  meminisse  deberet.  Cf.  the 
work,  De  Sacrum,  i.  I,  attributed  to  him. 

'  Here  /caAuf  TraiTC  irenoiTjKe :  there  navra  oaa  cTroiT/ae,  Ka?.a  2.iav. 


85.  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEDING  OF  FOUR  THOUSAND, 

Matt.  xv.  32-39;  Mark  viii.  1-9. 

ALMOST  all  wliicli  might  be  said  upon  this  miracle,  the 
preceding  one  in  the  same  kind  (Matt.  xiv.  15)  has 
anticipated  already ;  to  which  therefore  the  reader  is  re- 
ferred.' Whether  this  was  wrought  nearly  in  the  same 
region,  namely,  in  the  desert  country  belonging  to  Beth- 
saida,'^  and  not  rather  on  the  western,  as  the  former  on  the 
eastern,  side  of  the  lake,  has  been  sometimes  debated.  On 
the  whole  it  is  most  probable  that  the  scene  of  it  was 
almost  the  same ;  for  thither  the  narrative  of  St.  Mark 
appears  to  have  brought  the  Lord.  Leaving  the  coasts  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon  after  the  healing  of  the  daughter  of  the  Syro- 
phoenician  woman.  He  is  reported  to  have  again  reached  the 
sea  of  Galilee,  and  this  through  the  midst  of  the  coasts  of 
Decapolis  (vii.  31).  But  all  the  cities  of  the  Decapolis  save 
one  lay  beyond  Jordan,  and  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  lake ; 
this  notice  therefore  places  Him  on  the  same  side  also.  The 
fact  that  immediately  after  the  miracle  He  took  ship  and 
came  to  the  region  of  Magdala  (Matt.  xv.  39),  points  the 
same  way ;    since  Magdala  was  certainly  on  the  western 

^  Augustine  (Z)e  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  50)  observes  well  that  if  tliis  miracle 
had  been  recorded  by  Evacgelists  who  had  not  recorded  the  similar 
miracle  preceding,  and  by  no  other,  there  would  inevitably  have  been 
some  who,  assuming  the  several  narratives  to  be  records  of  one  and  the 
same  event,  would  have  found  here  more  discrepancies  than  one  between 
the  several  Gospels;  and  he  takes  occasion  hereupon  to  hay  down  an 
important  canon  of  Scripture  interpretation;  see  Archdeacon  Lee,  Insjji- 
ration  of  Holy  Scripture,  3rd  edit.  p.  394. 

*  Not  Bethsaida,  '  the  city  of  Andrew  and  Peter,'  but  the  Bethsaida 
already  mentioned,  p.  279. 


FEEDING   OF   FOUR  THOUSAND.  377 

side,  and  He  more  probably  took  sliip  to  cross  tlie  lake  than 
to  coast  along  its  shores.' 

With  many  points  of  likeness,  there  are  also  some 
points  of  unlikeness  in  the  two  miracles.  Here  the  people 
had  continued  with  the  Lord  three  days,  while  on  the 
former  occasion  nothin<x  of  the  kind  is  noted;  the  pro- 
vision too  is  somewJtiat  larger,  '  seven  loaves  and  a  few 
little  fishes,'  instead  of  five  loaves  and  two  fishes ;  while 
the  number  fed  is  somewhat  smaller,  four  thousand  now 
instead  of  the  five  thousand  then  ;  and  the  remaining  frag- 
ments in  this  case  fill  but  seven  baskets,  while  in  the 
former  they  had  filled  twelve.^     It  does  not  need  to  observe 

*  St.  Mark,  who  for  Magdala  substitutes  Dalmanutha,  does  not  help  us 
here,  as  there  are  no  further  traces  of  this  place.  Tliat  it  was  on  the 
■western  side  of  the  lake  we  conclude  from  the  fact  that  Christ's  leaving 
it  and  crossing  the  lake  is  described  as  a  departing  ti'c  -o  TrLpai',  an  ex- 
pression in  the  New  Testament  applied  almost  exclusively  to  the  country- 
east  of  the  lake  and  of  Jordan.  In  some  maps,  in  Lightfoot's  for  instance, 
Magdala  is  placed  at  the  S.E.  of  the  lake ;  but  this  is  a  mistake, 
passages  which  he  himself  quotes  from  Jewish  writers  [Choroi/roph.  76), 
showing  plainly  that  it  was  close  to  Tiberias.  It  is  most  probably  the 
modern  El-Madschdel,  lying  on  the  S.W.  of  the  lake,  and  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  city  just  named.  So  Greswell,  Dissert,  vol.  ii.  p.  324; 
Winer,  Healworterbuch,  s.  v.  Magdala;  Kobinson,  Biblical  Researches, 
vol.  iii.  p.  278. 

'  All  four  Evangelists,  in  narrating  the  first  miracle,  describe  the 
baskets  which  were  filled  with  the  remaining  fragments  as  Kot.ivovc, 
while  the  two  who  relate  the  second  no  less  agree  in  using  there  the  term 
anvpicac.  That  this  variation  was  not  accidental  is  clear  from  our  Lord's 
after  words ;  when  referring  to  the  two  miracles,  lie  preserves  the  dis- 
tinction, asking  his  disciples  how  many  koijIvov^  on  the  first  occasion  they 
gathered  up;  how  many  ffnvpiSag  on  the  second  (Matt.  xvi.  9,  10  ;  Mark 
viii.  19,  20).  What  the  distinction  was,  is  more  difficult  to  say.  The 
derivation  of  k6i,ivo^  from  kotttw  (^ayyuou  TrXf/ordr,  Suidas),  and  mrvpiq 
from  uTTupa,  does  not  help  us,  as  each  points  to  the  baskets  being  of 
wicker-work  ;  see,  however,  another  derivation  of  (nrvoit;  in  Greswell 
(Dissert,  vol.  ii.  p.  35S),  and  the  distinction  which  he  seeks  to  draw  from 
it.  Whi/  the  Apostles  should  have  been  provided  with  the  one  or  the 
other  has  been  variously  explained.  Some  say,  to  carry  their  own  pro- 
visions with  them,  while  they  were  travelling  through  a  polluted  land, 
such  as  Samaria.  Greswell  rather  supposes,  that  they  might  sleep  in 
them,  so  long  as  they  were  compelled  to  lodge  sub  dio ;  and  quotes 
Juvenal  (Sat.  iii.  13)  :  Judseis,  quorum  cophimts  foenumque  supellex;  cf. 
Martial  (Epigr.  v.  7),  who  mockingly  calls  the  Jews  cistiferos.  It 
appears  from  Acts  ix.  25  that  the  mrvpii;  might  be  of  size  sufficient  to 
contain  a  man:  compare  Blunt,  Undesigned  Coincidences,  184.7,  P-  ^Ji* 


378  THE  MIRACULOUS  FEEDING 

that  these  trivial  differences  do  not  in  the  slightest  measure 
affect  the  miraculous  element  in  this  work  of  power. 

At  first  it  excites  some  surprise  that  the  disciples,  with 
that  other  miracle  fresh  in  their  memories,  should  on  this 
second  occasion  have  been  as  seriously  perplexed  how  the 
multitude  should  be  fed  as  they  were  on  the  first.  Yet 
this  surprise  rises  out  of  our  ignorance  of  man's  heart,  of 
our  own  heart,  and  of  the  deep  root  of  unbelief  which  is 
there.  It  is  evermore  thus  in  times  of  difficulty  and  dis- 
tress. All  former  deliverances  are  in  danger  of  being  for- 
gotten ;  '  the  mighty  interpositions  of  God's  hand  in  former 
passages  of  men's  lives  fall  out  of  their  remembrance ; 
each  new  difficulty  appears  as  one  from  which  there  is  no 
extrication ;  at  each  recurring  necessity  it  seems  as  though 
the  wonders  of  God's  grace  were  exhausted  and  have  come 
utterly  to  an  end.  He  may  have  divided  the  Eed  Sea  for 
his  people,  yet  no  sooner  are  they  on  the  other  side,  than 
because  there  is  no  water  to  drink,  they  murmur  against 
Moses,  and  count  that  they  must  perish  for  thirst,  crying, 
'Is  the  Lord  among  us,  or  not'  (Exod.  xvii.  1-7)  ?  or,  to 
adduce  a  still  nearer  parallel.  He  who  opens  his  hand 
and  fills  all  things  living  with  plenteousness  may  have 
once  already  covered  the  camp  with  quails  (Exod.  xvi.  13), 
yet  for  all  this  even  Moses  himself  cannot  believe  that  He 
will  provide  flesh  for  all  that  multitude  (Num.  xi.  21,  22). 
It  is  only  the  man  of  a  full-formed  faith,  of  a  faith  which 
Apostles  themselves  at  this  time  did  not  possess,  who 
argues  from  the  past  to  the  future,  and  truly  derives  confi- 
dence from  God's  former  dealings  of  faithfulness  and  love 
(cf.  I  Sam.  xvii.  34-37  ;  2  Chron.  xvi.  7,  8).  Nothing 
then  but  a  strange  unacquaintance  with  the  heart  of  man 
could  have  led  any  to  argue  that  the  disciples,  with  their 
previous  experience  of  one  miracle  of  this  kind,  could  not 

*  Calvin :  Quia  autetn  similis  quotidie  nobis  obrepit  torpor,  eo  magis 
caveiiJum  est  ue  unquam  distrahantur  mentes  nostra?  a  reputandis  Dei 
beneficiis,  ut  prajteriti  temporis  experientia  in  fiiturum  idem  nos  sperare 
doceat,  quod  jam  semel  vel  stepius  largitus  est  Deus. 


OF  FOUR   THOUSAND.  379 

on  a  second  similar  occasion  liave  been  perplexed  how  tlie 
wants  of  the  multitude  should  be  supplied ;  that  we  have 
therefore  here  an  illustration  of  the  general  inaccuracy 
which  prevails  in  the  records  of  our  Lord's  life,  of  a  loose 
tradition,  which  has  told  the  same  event  twice  over. 

Moreover  this  perplexity  of  theirs  is  capable  of  another 
explanation.  Could  it  not  easily  have  happened  that  the 
disciples,  perfectly  remembering  how  their  Master  had 
once  spread  a  table  in  the  wilderness,  and  fully  persuaded 
that  He  could  do  it  again,  might  still  doubt  whether  He 
would  choose  a  second  time  to  put  forth  his  creative  might ; 
— whether  there  was  in  these  present  multitudes  that 
spiritual  hunger,  which  was  worthy  of  being  met  and 
rewarded  by  such  an  interpositi(m  of  divine  power;  whether 
they  too  were  seeking  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  its 
righteousness,  and  might  thus  claim  to  have  all  other 
things,  those  also  which  pertain  to  this  lower  life,  added 
unto  them  ?  ^  *  But  such  earnest  seekers,  for  the  time  at 
least,  they  were ;  and  as  others  had  faith  to  be  healed,  so 
these  had  faith  to  be  fed ;  and  the  same  bounteous  hand 
which  fed  the  five  thousand  before,  fed  the  four  thousand 
now. 

^  It  is  at  least  an  ingenious  allegory  which  Augustine  proposes,  namely 
that  these  two  miracles  severally  set  forth  Christ's  Cummunication  of 
Himself  to  the  Jew  and  to  the  Gentile :  that  as  the  first  is  a  parable  of 
the  Jewish  people  finding  in  Ilim  the  satisfaction  of  their  spiritual  need, 
so  this  second,  in  which  the  people  came  from  far,  even  from  the  far 
country  of  idols,  is  a  parable  of  the  Gentile  world.  The  details  of  his 
application  may  be  of  no  very  great  value ;  but  the  perplexity  of  the 
Apostles  here  concerning  the  supply  of  the  new  needs,  notwithstanding 
all  that  tliey  had  already  witnessed,  will  then  exactly  answer  to  the 
slowness  with  which  they,  as  the  ministers  of  the  new  Kingdom,  recog- 
nized that  Christ  was  as  Ireely  given  to,  and  was  as  truly  the  portion  of, 
the  Gentile  as  the  Jew,  This  sermon  the  Benedictine  Edd.  relegate  to 
the  Appendix  (Ser?>i.  \xxxi.),  but  the  passage  about  Eutychea  may  easily 
be,  indeed  evidently  is,  an  interpolation;  and  the  rest  is  so  entirely  in 
Augustine's  manner,  that  I  have  not  hesitated  to  refer  to  it  as  his. 
Hilary  had  before  him  suggested  the  same :  Sicut  autem  ilia  turba 
quam  prius  pavit,  Judaicte  credentium  convenit  turb?e,  ica  haec  populo 
gentium  comparatur, 

25 


i6.  THE  OPENING   THE  EYES  OF  ONE  BLIND  AT 
BETHSAIDA. 

Mark  viii.  22-26. 

AMIEACLE   peculiar    to  St.  Mark,  and  in  many  of 
its  circumstances  closely  resembling  another,  which 
he   has   recorded   a  little  while  before  (vii.  31-37),  and 
which  also  is  exclusively  his.     It  thus  in  its  most  impor- 
tant features  has  been  treated  of  already.     As  the  Lord 
took   that  other  sufferer,  of  whom  the  same  Evangelist 
alone  keeps  a  record,  *  aside  from  the  multitude'  (vii.  33), 
even  so  '  He  took  the  blind  man  hy   the  hand,  and  led  him 
out  of  the  toivn  ; '  '  and  with  the   same  moisture  from  his 
own  mouth  wrought  his  cure.     The  Lord,  as  was  so  often 
his  custom,  veiling  more  or  less  the  miraculous  in  the 
miracle,  links  on  his  power  to  means  already  in  use  among 
men;   working  through   these   means  something  higher 
than  they  could  themselves  have  produced,  and  clothing 
the  supernatural  in  the  forms  of  the  natural.     Thus  did 
He,  for  example,  when  He  bade  his  disciples  to  anoint  the 
sick  with  oil, — one  of  the  most  esteemed  helps  for  healing 
in  the  East  (Mark  vi.   13;  cf.  Jam.  v.  14).     Not  the  oil, 
but  his  word,  should  heal ;   yet  without  the  oil  the  dis- 
ciples might  have  found  it  too  hard  to  believe  in  tlie  power 
which  they  were  exerting, — those  who  could  only  be  healed 
through  their  faith,  to  believe  in  the  power  which  should 
heal  them.    So  the  figs  laid  on  Hezekiah's  boil  were  indeed 

'  Bengel :  Caeco  visum  recuperanti  laetior  erat  a?pectu3  c£eli  et  operum 
divinomui  in  natuia,  q^uam  operum  humanorum  in  pago. 


OPENING   THE   EYES  OF  ONE  BLIND.       381 

the  very  remedy  wliich  a  pliysician  with  only  natural 
appliances  at  command  would  have  used  (Isai.  xxxviii. 
22  ;  cf.  2  Kin.  ii.  20,  21)  ;  yet  now,  hiding  itself  behind 
this  nature,  clothing  itself  in  the  forms  of  this  nature,  an 
effectual  work  of  preternatural  healing  went  forward. 

The  feature  which  most  distinguishes  this  miracle  is 
the  progressive  character  of  the  cure.  This,  it  is  true,  is 
not  itself  without  analogies  in  other  cases,  as  in  that  of 
the  man  blind  from  his  birth,  who  only  after  he  had  washed 
in  Siloam,  '  came  seeing '  (John  ix.  7)  ;  yet  the  steps  of 
the  progress  are  marked  with  greater  emphasis  here  than 
in  any  other  instance.  For,  first,  after  the  Lord  '  had 
spit  on  his  eyes,  and  put  his  hands  upon  him,  He  asked  him 
if  he  saw  aught.  And  he  looked  up,  and  said,  I  see  men,  as 
trees,  ivallcing.'  Certain  moving  forms  he  saw  about  him, 
but  without  the  power  of  discerning  their  shape  or  mag- 
nitude,— trees  he  should  have  accounted  them  from  their 
height,  and  men  from  their  motion.^  But  the  good  Phy- 
sician leaves  not  his  work  unfinished  :  '  After  that  He  put 
his  hands  again  upon  his  eyes,"^  and  made  him  look  up  ;  and 
he  ivas  restored,  and  saw  every  man  clearly.'' 

Chrysostom  and  others  find  the  explanation  of  this  gra- 
dual cure,  in  the  imperfection  of  this  blind  man's  faith. 
Proof  of  this  imperfection  they  see  in  the  fact,  that,  while 
others  in  a  like  calamity  did  themselves  beseech  the  Lord 
that  He  would  open  their  eyes,  this  man  was  brought  to 
Him  by  others,  as  one  who  himself  scarcely  expected  a 
benefit.     The  gracious  Lord,  who  would  not  reject,  but 

1  In  Cheselden's  interesting  account  {Anatomy,  p.  301,  Loudon,  1768) 
of  the  experience  of  one  who,  having  been  blind  from  his  birth,  was 
enabled  to  see,  a  curious  confirmation  of  the  truthfulness  of  this  narrative 
occurs  :  'When  he  first  saw,  he  knew  not  the  shape  of  anything,  nor  any- 
one thing  from  another,  however  different  in  shape  or  magnitude ;  but 
being  told  what  things  were,  whose  forms  he  before  knew  from  feeling, 
he  would  carefully  observe,  that  he  might  know  them  again.' 

'^  Chemnitz  {Harm.  Evang.  84.)  :  Manus  imponit  ut  ostendat  camem 
suam  esse  instrumentum  per  quod  et  cum  quo  ipse  0  Aoyoq  seternus  omnia 
opera  vivificationis  perficiat. 


382  OPENING  THE  EYES 

who  could  as  little  cure,  so  long  as  tliere  was  on  his  part 
this  desperation  of  healing,  vouchsafed  to  him  a  glimpse  of 
the  blessing,  that  He  might  awaken  in  him  a  longing  for 
its  fulness,  and,  this  longing  once  awakened,  presently 
satisfied  him  with  that  fulness.  To  the  rest  of  the  world, 
this  healing  step  by  step  is  a  testimony  of  the  freeness  of 
God's  grace,  which  is  linked  to  no  single  way  of  manifes- 
tation, but  works  in  divers  manners,  sometimes  accom- 
plishing only  little  by  little  what  at  other  times  it  brings 
about  in  a  moment.^  And  certainly  no  symbol  more  suit- 
able could  be  found  of  the  progressive  steps  by  which  He 
who  is  '  the  Light  of  the  world '  makes  sometimes  the 
S3uls  that  come  to  Him  partakers  of  the  illumination  of 
his  ffrace.  Not  all  at  once  are  the  old  errors  and  the  old 
confusions  put  to  flight ;  not  all  at  once  do  they  see  clearly: 
for  a  while  there  is  much  of  their  old  blindness  remaining, 
much  for  a  season  impairing  their  vision  ;  they  see  men  but 
as  trees,  walking.  Yet  in  good  time  Christ  completes  the 
work  which  He  has  begun.  '  The  author,'  He  is  also  '  the 
finisher  of  their  faith  ; '  He  lays  his  hands  on  them  anew, 
and  they  see  every  man  clearly.'* 

*  And  He  sent  him  away  to  his  house,  saying,  Neither  go 
into  the  town,  nor  tell  it  to  any  in  the  town '  (cf.  Matt.  ix. 
30;  Mark  i.  44;  vii.  36).  The  first  of  these  commands 
seems  to  contain,  and  in  fact  does  contain,  the  second ; 

*  Calvin :  Paiilatim  cseco  visum  restituit :  quod  ideo  factum  esse  pro- 
babile  est,  ut  documentum  in  hoc  homine  statueret  liberae  suae  dispeusa- 
tionis,  uec  se  astrictum  esse  ad  certam  normara,  quin  hoc  vel  illo  modo 
yirtutem  suam  proferret.  Oculos  ergo  cseci  non  statim  ita  illuminat  ut 
officio  suo  fungantur,  sed  obscurum  illis  confusumque  intuitum  instillat : 
deinde  altera  manuum  impositione  integram  aciem  illis  reddit.  Ita  gra- 
tia Christi,  quae  in  alios  repente  effusa  prius  erat,  quasi  guttatim  defluxit 
in  hunc  hominem. 

^  Eede :  Quem  uno  verbo  totum  simul  curare  poterat,  paulatim  curat, 
ut  magnitudinem  humanae  csecitatis  ostendat,  quae  vix  et  quasi  per 
gradus  ad  lucera  redeat,  et  gratiam  suam  nobis  indicet,  per  quam  singula 
perfectionis  incrementa  adjuvat.  Quod  autem  eura  in  domum  ire 
priBcepit,  mystice  admonet  omnes  qui  cognitione  veritatis  illustrantur, 
ut  ad  cor  suum  redeant,  et  quantum  sibi  donatum  sit  soUicita  mente 
perpendant. 


OF  ONE  BLIND.  383 

for  if  he  did  not  '  go  into  the  town/  it  is  certain  he  could 
not  *  tell  it  to  any  in  the  town ;  *  but  St.  Mark  loves  em- 
phatic statements  of  this  kind,  and  by  such  repetitions  to 
secure  a  strong  impression  on  the  minds  of  his  readers. 
Whether  on  this  occasion  the  Lord  was  better  obeyed 
than  on  so  many  others,  we  are  not  told. 


27.  THE  HEALING   OF   THE  LUNATIC  CHILD. 
Matt.  xvii.  1+-21;  Mark  ix.  14-29;  Luke  ix.  37-42. 

THE  old  adversaries  of  our  Lord,  the  Scribes,  liad  taken 
advantage  of  liis  absence  on  the  Mount  of  Trans- 
figuration, to  win  a  temporary  triumph  over  such  of  his 
disciples  as  He  had  left  behind  Him.  These  had  under- 
taken to  cast  out  an  evil  spirit  of  a  peculiar  malignity, 
and  had  proved  unequal  to  the  task ;  *  they  could  not ' — 
weakened  as  they  were  by  the  absence  of  their  Lord ;  and 
with  Him,  of  three,  the  chiefest  among  themselves — the 
three  in  whom,  as  habitually  the  nearest  to  Him,  we  may 
suj)pose  his  power  most  mightily  resided.  It  was  here 
again,  as  it  was  once  before  during  the  absence  of  Moses 
with  his  servant  Joshua,  on  his  mount  of  a  fainter  trans- 
figuration (Exod.  xxxiv.  29).  Then,  too,  in  like  manner, 
the  enemy,  profiting  by  his  absence,  awhile  prevailed 
against  the  people  (Exod.  xxsii.).  And  now  the  Scribes 
were  pressing  to  the  uttermost  the  advantage  which  they 
had  gained  by  this  miscarriage  of  the  disciples.  A  great 
multitude  were  gathered  round,  spectators  of  the  defeat  of 
Christ's  servants  ;  and  the  strife  was  at  the  highest, — the 
Scribes,  no  doubt,  arguing  from  the  impotence  of  the 
servants  to  the  impotence  of  the  Master,^  and  these  denying 
the  conclusion ;  when  suddenly  He  about  whom  the  strife 
was,  appeared,  returning  from  the  holy  Mount,  his  face 
and  person  yet  glistening,  as  there  is  reason  to  suppose, 

'  Calvin :  Scriba3  yictores  insultant,  nee  modo  subsannant  discipiilos, 
Bed  proterviunt  adversus  Christum,  quasi  in  illorum  persona  exinanita 
esset  ejus  yirtus. 


THE  HEALING   OF  THE  LUNATIC  CHILD.     385 

with,  traces  of  the  glory  wliicli  had  clothed  Him  there, — 
and  which  had  not  quite  faded  yet  into  the  light  of 
common  da3%  But  very  different  was  the  impression  which 
that  glory  made  from  the  impression  made  by  the  counte- 
nance of  Moses.  When  the  multitude  saw  the  lawgiver  of 
the  elder  Covenant,  as  he  came  down  from  his  mountain, 
the  skin  of  his  face  shining,  *  they  were  afraid  to  come 
nigh  him '  (Exod.  xxxiv.  30) ;  for  that  glory  upon  his  face 
was  a  threatening  glory,  the  awful  and  intolerable  brightness 
of  the  law.  But  the  glory  of  God  shining  in  the  face  of 
Christ  Jesus,  though  awful  too,  is  also  an  attractive  glory, 
full  of  grace  and  beauty ;  it  draws  men  to  Him,  does  not 
drive  them  from  Him ;  and  thus,  indeed,  '  all  the  people, 
when  they  beheld  Him,  were  greatly  amazed'  such  gleams  of 
brightness  arrayed  Him  still ;  yet  did  they  not  therefore  flee 
from  Him,  but  rather,  as  being  the  more  allured  by  that 
brightness,  Running  to  Him,  saluted  Him' ^  (cf.  2  Cor.  iii.  18). 
Yet  the  sights  and  sounds  which  greeted  Him  on  his 
return  to  our  sinful  world,  how  different  were  they  from 
those  which  He  had  just  quitted  upon  the  holy  Mount ! 
There  the  highest  harmonies  of  heaven ;  here  some  of  the 
wildest  and  harshest  discords  of  earth.^  There  He  had 
been  receiving  from  the  Father  honour  and  glory  (2  Pet. 
i.  17)  ;  here  his  disciples,  those  to  whom  his  work  had 
been  intrusted  in  his  absence,  had  been  j)rocuring  for 
Him,  as  far  as  in  them  lay,  shame  and  dishonour.     But  as 

^  Bengel  with  his  usual  beauty:  Tangebantnr  a  gloria,  etiamsi  nescirent 
quid  in  monte  actum  esi?et;  cf.  Mavc.  x.  32  ;  Luc,  xix.  11;  noc  non  Ex. 
iv.  14;  xxxiv.  29.  Occultam  cum  Deo  conversationem  facile  sentias  ma- 
jorem  hominum  erga  te  proclivitatem  insequi.  Theophylact  mentions, 
though  he  does  not  adopt,  this  explanation  :  'luic  ci  (paniv  on  >)  I'v^if  avrov 

wpctinr'tpn   yivofdi'T]   c'nro   rau  (jnoroi:  -l)(;  nfTafioixpwaKijr,  i(pfi\KSTO  Toix  d\Xovc 

■r-poi;  Tu  a'nrai:ien9ai.  Corn,  a  Lapide :  Quod  viderent  in  vultu  Jesu  pauIo 
ante  transfigurato  reliquos  ndhuc  aliquoa  splendoris  radios,  sicut  Mosi 
post  Dei  colloquium  in  vultu  adhseserunt  radii,  et  quasi  coniua  lucis. 

*  These  mighty  and  wondrous  contrasts  have  been  embodied  by 
Christiaa  Art.  In  them  lies  the  idea  of  Raphael's  great  picture  of 
the  Transfiguration,  and  its  two  parts,  which  in  these  their  contrasts 
60  marvellously  sustain  one  another. 


386  THE  HEALING   OF 

when  some  great  captain,  suddenly  arriving  upon  a  battle- 
field, where  his  subordinate  lieutenants  have  wellnigh  lost 
the  day  and  brought  all  into  an  almost  hopeless  confusion, 
with  his  eye  measures  at  once  the  necessities  of  the 
moment,  and  with  no  more  than  his  presence  causes  the 
tide  of  victory  to  turn,  and  evei'ything  to  right  itself 
again,  so  was  it  now.  The  Lord  arrests  the  advancing 
and  victorious  foe :  He  addresses  Himself  to  the  Scribes ; 
with  the  words,  '  What  question  ye  with  them,  ? '  taking  the 
baffled  and  hard-pressed  disciples  under  his  own  protection, 
and  declaring  that  whatever  question  there  was  more,  it 
must  be  with  Himself.  The  Scribes,  so  forward  to  dispute 
with  the  servants,  do  not  so  readily  accept  the  challenge 
of  the  Master.  The  disciples  are  as  little  forward  to 
proclaim  their  own  failure ;  and  thus  '  one  of  the  multitude,'' 
the  father  of  the  poor  child  on  whom  the  ineffectual 
attempt  at  healing  had  been  made,  is  the  first  to  speak ; 
*  kneeling  down  to  Him,  and  saying,  Lord,  have  m,ercy  on  my 
son ; '  and  with  this  declaring  the  miserable  case  of  his 
child,  and  the  little  help  he  had  obtained  from  the  disciples. 
St.  Mark  paints  the  whole  scene  with  the  hand  of  a 
master,  and  his  account  of  this  miracle,  compared  with 
those  of  the  other  Evangelists,  would  alone  suffice  to 
vindicate  for  him  an  original  character,  and  to  refute  the 
notion  of  some,  that  we  have  in  his  Gospel  nothing  more 
than  an  epitome  and  abridgement,  now  of  the  first,  and 
now  of  the  third.'     All  the  symptoms,   as  j)ut  into  the 

1  Even  Augustine  consents  too  far  to  this  unworthy  estimate  of  the 
second  Gospel  (Z)e  Cons.  Eva7ig.  i.  2):  Uivus  Marcus  eum  [Matthaeum] 
subsequutus,  tanquam  pedissequus  et  breviator  ejus  videtur.  lie  has 
enough  of  perfectly  independent  notices,  his  and  his  only,  to  justify  our 
claim  of  quite  another  position  for  him  and  for  his  Gospel.  I  subjoin 
references  to  some  of  these:  i.  13,  20,  29,  35;  ii.  3,  14,  27;  iii,  5,  17,  34.; 
iv.  26-29,  36,  38;  V.  4,  13,  20,  42.  43;  vi.  13,40,43,48;  vii.  32-37; 
viii.  14,  22-26  ;  ix.  49  ;  x.  16,  17,  21,  46.  50  ;  xi.  16,  20,  21 ;  xiii.  3,  32; 
xiv,  51,  52;  XV.  21,  44;  xvi.  7,  16-18.  Let  me  add  that,  as  all  those 
■who  have  followed  up  the  latest  investigations  of  German  scholars  into 
the  origin  of  the  Gospels,  and  their  relations  one  to  another,  are  aware, 
there  is  a  growing  tendency  at  the  present  date  (1869)  to  ascribe  the  very 
highest  importance  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  Mark,  and  sometimes  at  the  ex- 


THE  LUNATIC   CHILD.  2^7 

father's  moutli,  or  described  by  the  sacred  historians, 
exactly  agree  with  those  of  epilepsy ; — not  that  we  have 
here  only  an  epileptic  ;  but  this  was  the  ground  on  which 
the  deeper  spiritual  evils  of  this  child  were  superinduced. 
The  fits  were  sudden  and  lasted  remarkably  long ;  the  evil 
spirit  '  hardly  departeth  from,  him  ; ' — *  a  dumb  spirit,^  St. 
Mark  calls  it,  a  statement  which  does  not  contradict  that 
of  St.  Luke,  '  he  suddenly  crieth  out ; '  this  dumbness  was 
only  in  respect  of  articulate  sounds ;  he  could  give  no 
utterance  to  these.  Nor  was  it  a  natural  defect,  as  where 
the  string  of  the  tongue  has  remained  unloosed  (Mark  viii. 
32),  or  the  needful  organs  for  speech  are  wanting ;  nor  yet 
a  defect  under  which  he  had  always  laboured;  but  the 
consequence  of  this  possession.  When  the  spirii  took  him 
in  its  might,  then  in  these  paroxysms  of  his  disorder  it 
tare  him,  till  he  foamed  •  and  gnashed  with  his  teeth :  and 
altogether  he  pined  away  like  one  the  very  springs  of 
whose  life  were  dried  up.'^     And  while  these  accesses  of 

pense  of  the  other  Gospels.  Thus  see  Klostermann,  Das  Marcusevavgelium 
nach  seinem  Quellemcerthe,  1867;  Scholten,  Das  dlieste  ^vanffeliutn,  Leyden, 
1868. 

^  Lucian  {Philopseudes,  16)  has  ironical  allusions,  as  I  must  needs 
think,  to  this  and  other  cures  of  demoniacs  by  our  Lord :  Uinnn;  luaiyiv 
tIv  Si'ipoi'  Tvv  IK  TJjt;  IlaXaiirii'/jc,  tov  iiri  tovtwv  00(1,1(771)1',  ocrouf  7rapa\uj3ilii' 
KaTdTTiTTToiTaQ  TTpoQ  tiji'  (jf\)p't]v  Kui  Til)  6i)6(i\nto  ^iianTpf(povrnQ  Kcii  ajpov 
TrtuTT\((fi'(i'oiig  TO  iJTOfia  o^Hi'C  n)'i(T'-//'n  irni  aTTonttxTrti  aoriiiig  itrt  fiirrl^  (p  iiEyn\(f) 

cnroX^n^iig  run'  ^iivwv.  There  is  much  of  interest  in  the  passage,  besides 
what  I  have  quoted. 

*  If  indeed  h}nan'(rai  has  not  reference  to  the  stiffness  and  starkness, 
the  unnatural  rigidity  of  the  limbs,  in  the  accesses  of  the  disorder;  cf. 
2  Kin.  xiii.  4,  LXX.  Such,  though  not  its  primary,  might  well  be  its 
secondary,  meaning;  since  that  which  is  dried  tip  loses  its  pliability,  and 
the  father  is  describing  not  the  general  pining  away  of  his  son,  but  his 
symptoms  when  the  paroxysm  took  him.  The  (ji\iiviaZi'>^tffni  (in  other 
Greek  (Tf\,pwKnl,  irt\iivnj3\tirci)  are  mentioned  once  besides  in  the  New 
Testament  (Matt.  iv.  24),  where  they  are  distinguished  from  the  cai^iovi- 
Z6fiiroi.  The  distinction,  whatever  it  was,  in  the  popular  language  would 
continually  disappear;  and  the  father  saying  of  his  son  (rt\iivi(iiliTai  does 
but  express  the  fact,  or  rather  the  consequence,  of  his  possession.  The 
word,  like  noiL  (from  phiii)  and  lunatmis,  originally  embodied  the  belief, 
not  altogether  unfounded,  of  the  evil  influence  of  the  moon  (I's.  cxxi.  6) 
on  the  human  frame  (see  Creuzer,  Symbolik,  vol,  ii,  p.  571). 


S88  THE  HEALING   OF 

his  disorder  miglit  come  upon  him  at  any  moment  and  in 
any  place,  they  often  exposed  him  to  the  worst  accidents  : 
*  ofttimes  hefalleth  into  the  fire,  and  oft  into  the  water.'  In 
St.  Mark  the  father  attributes  these  fits  to  the  direct 
agency  of  the  evil  spirit :  '  ofttimes  it  hath  cast  him  into  the 
fire,  and  into  the  waters,  to  destroy  him ; '  yet  such  calamities 
might  equally  be  looked  at  as  the  natural  consequences  of 
his  unhappy  condition.^ 

The  father  concludes  his  sad  tale  with  a  somewhat 
reproachful  reference  to  the  futile  efforts  of  the  disciples  to 
aid  him ;  and  declares  Avhat  impotent  exorcists  they  had 
proved  :  *  I  spake  to  thy  disciples  that  they  should  cast  him 
out,  and  they  could  not.'  We  have  two  explanations  of 
our  liOrd's  words  of  sorrowful  indignation  which  follow, 
'  0  faithless  generation,  hoiv  long  shall  I  he  with  you  ?  hoiv 
long  shall  I  suffer  you  ? '  For  some,  as  for  Origen,  this  'faith- 
less generation '  is  the  disciples,  and  they  only ;  and  this  an 
utterance  of  holy  impatience  at  the  weakness  of  their 
faith,  whom  so  brief  a  separation  from  Him  had  shorn  of 
their  strength,  and  left  powerless  against  the  kingdom  of 
darkness  ;  and  the  after  discourse  (Matt.  xvii.  20)  favours 
such  an  application.  But  Chrysostom,  and  generally  the 
early  interpreters,  pointedly  exclude  the  disciples  from  the 
rebuke ;  apjDly  it  to  the  surrounding  multitude  alone ; 
whom  certainly  the  term  *  generation '  seems  better  to 
suit ;  in  whom  the   Lord  beholds   samples  of  the  whole 

*  These  extracts  will  abundantly  justify  what  was  said  above  of  the 
symptoms  of  this  child's  case  being  those  of  one  taken  with  epilepsy. 
Cjelius  Aurelianus  (3Iorb,  Vhron.  i.  4) :  Alii  [epileptici]  publicis  in  locis 
cadendo  foedantur,  adjunctis  etiara  externis  peiiculis,  loci  causa  prsecipites 
dati,  aut  in  flumina  vel  mare  cadentes.  And  Paulas  ^gineta,  the  last  of 
the  great  physicians  of  the  old  world,  describing  epilepsy  (iii.  13),  might 
almost  seem  to  have  borrowed  his  account  from  this  history  :  Morbus 
comitialis  est  convulsio  totius  corporis  cum  principalium  actionum  Ise- 
sione,  ...  fit  htec  affectio  maxime  pueris,  postea  vero  etiam  in  adole- 
scentibus  et  in  vigore  consistentibus.  Instante  vero  jam  symptomate 
collaptio  ipsis  derepente  contingit  et  convulsio,  et  quandoque  nihil  signifi- 
cans  exclamatio  \_ii,<ii(pvi^(2  Kpa^u,  Luke  ix.  39].  Prtecipuum  vero  ipsorum 
signum  est  oris  spuma  [^£r«  at;,poi;  Luke  ix.  59]. 


THE  LUNATIC   CHILD.  389 

Jewisli  people,  the  father  himself  representing  onlj  too 
well  the  unbelieving  temper  of  the  whole  generation  to 
whicli  he  pertained,  and  therefore  sharing  largely  in  the 
rebuke.  This  in  St.  Mark  is  directly  addressed  to  him, 
though  not  restrained  to  him,  but  intended  to  pass  on  to 
many  more.  It  will  be  best,  I  think,  to  understand  the 
words  as  not  exclusively  aimed  at  the  disciples,  nor  chiefly  ; 
but  addressed  rather  to  the  multitude  and  the  father. 
They,  however,  are  included  in  the  rebuke ;  their  unfaith- 
fulness and  unbelief  had  for  the  time  brought  them  back 
to  a  level  with  their  nation,  and  they  must  share  with  it 
all  in  a  common  condemnation.  '  How  long  shall  I  he  with 
you?'  are  words  not  so  much  of  one  longing  to  put  off 
the  coil  of  flesh,'  as  of  a  master,  complaining  of  the 
slowness  and  dulness  of  his  scholars  :  '  Have  I  abode  with 
you  all  this  time,  and  have  you  profited  so  little  by  my 
teaching  ?  '  Till  their  task  is  learned.  He  must  abide 
with  them  still.^  We  may  compare  his  words  to  Philip, 
'  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not 
known  Me,  Philip? '  (John  xiv.  9.) 

And  now,  since  the  help  which  is  done  on  earth.  He 
must  Himself  do  it,  He  exclaims,  'Bring  him  unto  Me.' 
As  the  staff  in  Gehazi's  hand  could  not  arouse  the  dead 
child,  but  the  prophet  himself  must  arrive  and  undertake 
the  work,  if  it  were  to  be  done  at  all,  so  is  it  now 
(2  Kin.  iv.  31).  Yet  the  first  bringing  of  the  child  to  Jesus 
causes  another  of  the  fearful  paroxysms  of  his  disorder,  so 
that  '  he  fell  on  the  ground  and  ivalloived,  foaming.'  The 
kingdom  of  Satan  in  small  and  in  great  is  ever  stirred 
into  a  fiercer  activity  by  the  coming  near  of  the  kingdom 

^  Jerome  (Cortim.  in  Matt,  iu  loc):  Non  quod  ttedio  superatus  sit,  et 
mansuetus  ac  mitis;  .  .  .  sed  quod  in  similitudinem  mediri  si  a?(rrotum 
videat  contra  sua  prsecepta  se  gerere  dicat :  Usquequo  accedam  ad  donium 
tuam,  quousque  artis  perdani  injuriam  ;  me  aliud  jubente  et  te  aliud  per- 
petrante  ? 

^  Bengel:  Festinabat  ad  Patrem :  nee  tamen  abituni  se  facere  posse 
Bciebat,  priusquam  discipulos  ad  tidem  perduxisset.  Molesta  erat  tarditaa 
eorum. 


390  THE  HEALING   OF 

of  Christ.  Satan  has  great  wrath,  when  his  time  is  short.  ^ 
But  as  the  Lord  on  occasion  of  another  diflScult  and  perilous 
cure  (Mark  v.  9)  began  a  conversation  with  the  sufferer 
Himself,  seeking  thus  to  inspire  him  with  confidence,  to 
bring  back  something  of  calmness  to  his  soul,  so  does  He 
now  with  the  representative  of  the  sufferer,  the  father, 
being  precluded  by  Me  actual  condition  from  doing  this 
with  himself:  '  How  long  is  it  ago  since  this  came  unto  him?' 
The  father  answers,  '  Of  a  child,'  and,  for  the  stirring  of 
more  pity,  describes  again  the  miserable  perils  in  which 
these  fits  involved  his  child ;  at  the  same  time  ill  content 
that  anything  should  come  before  the  healing,  if  a  healing 
were  possible,  having,  also,  j)resent  to  his  mind  the  recent 
failure  of  the  disciples,  he  adds,  '  If  Thou,  Thou  more  than 
those,  canst  do  anything,  have  compassion  on  us,  and  help  us.' 
In  that '  us,'  we  see  how  entirely  his  own  life  is  knit  up 
with  his  child's  :  as  the  woman  of  Canaan,  pleading  for  her 
daughter,  had  cried,  '  Have  mercy  on  me'  (Matt.  xv.  22). 
At  the  same  time  he  reveals  by  that  'if  that  he  has  come 
with  no  unquestioning  faith  in  Christ's  power  to  aid,  but 
is  rendering  the  difficult  cure  more  difficult  still  bj  his  own 
doubts  and  unbelief. 

Our  Lord's  answer  is  not  without  its  difficulty,  which 
our  Version  has  rather  evaded  than  met;  but  its  sense 
is  plainly  the  following :  '  That  "  if"  of  thine,  that  un- 
certainty whether  anything  can  be  done  for  thy  child  or 
not,  is  to  be  resolved  by  thee,  and  not  by  Me.  There  is  a 
condition  without  which  he  cannot  be  healed;  but  the 
faliilling  of  the  condition  lies  with  thyself  and  no  other. 
The  absence  of  faith  on  thy  part,  and  not  any  overmaster- 
ing power  in  this  malignant  spirit,  is  that  which  strait- 
ens Me  ;  if  this  cure  is  hard,  it  is  thou  that  renderest  it 
so.  Thou  hast  said,  "  If  I  can  do  anything :  "  but  the 
question  is,  "  If  thou  canst  believe  ;  "  this  is  the  hinge  upon 

^  Calvin  :  Quo  propior  affulget  Christi  gratia,  et  efficadus  agit,  eo  im- 
poteiitius  furit  Satan. 


THE  LUNATIC   CHILD.  391 

which  all  must  turn ' — and  then  with  a  pause,  and  not 
merely  completing  the  sentence,  as  in  our  Version,*  ^  All 
things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth.'  Thus  faith  is  here, 
as  in  every  other  case,  set  as  the  condition  of  healing ;  on 
other  occasions  it  is  the  faith  of  the  person ;  but  here, 
that  being  impossible,  the  father's  is  accepted  instead ; 
even  as  the  Syrophoenician  mother's  in  the  room  of  her 
daughter's  (Matt.  xv.  22).  And  thus  too  the  Lord  appears 
in  some  sort  a  fiaisuTTjs  iriarscos,  helping  the  birth  of  faith 
in  that  travailing  soul ;  even  as  at  length,  though  with  pain 
and  sore  travail,  it  comes  to  the  birth,  so  that  the  father 
exclaims  with  tears,  '  Lord,  I  believe ; '  ^  and  then,  the 
little  spark  of  faith  which  has  been  kindled  in  his  soul 
revealing  to  him  the  abysmal  deeps  of  unbelief  which  are 
there,  he  adds  this  further :  '  Help  Thou  mine  unbelief.'  ^ 
For  thus  it  is  ever :  only  in  the  light  of  the  actual  pre- 
sence of  a  grace  in  the  soul  does  that  soul  perceive  the 
strength  and  prevalence  of  the  opposing  corruption.  Till 
then  it  had  no  measure  by  which  to  measure  its  deficiency. 
Only  he  who  believes,  guesses  ought  of  the  unbelief  of  his 
heart. 

When  now  this  prime  condition  of  healing  is  no  longer 
wanting  on  his  part,  the  Lord,  meeting  and  rewarding 
even  the  weak  beginnings  of  his  faith,  accomplishes  the 
cure.  How  majestic,  in  his  address  to  the  foul  spirit,  is 
that  '  I  charge  thee.*     No  longer  those  whom  thou  mayest 

'   The  words   should   be   pomted   thus:    tv,    h   curatrai    Trirtrtvaai'    Travra 

Svvnru  riij  TTtnTiinvn'  and  Bengel  enters  rightly  into  the  construction 
of  the  first  clause,  explaining  it  thus  :  Hoc,  si  potes  credere,  res  est ;  hoc 
agitur.  Calvin :  Tu  me  rogas  ut  subveniara  quoad  potero  ;  atqui  inex- 
haustum  virtutis  fonteni  in  me  reperies,  si  modo  afleras  satis  amplam  iidei 
mensuram. 

*  Thomas  Jackson,  the  great  Arminian  divine,  says  w«ll :  '  This  word, 
belief,  is  not  a  term  indivisible,  but  admits  of  many  degrees,  as  well  for 
the  certainty  of  the  assent  or  apprehension,  as  for  the  radication  of  the 
truth,  rightly  apprehended,  in  men's  hearts  or  centre  of  their  atlections.' 

*  Augustine,  Serm.  xliii.  6,  7. 

■*  Bengel :  'Eyw  aul  iiriTaaah).  Byo,  antitheton  ad  discipulos,  qui  noc 
valueraut. 


392  THE  HEALING   OF 

"hope  to  disobej,  against  wboni  thou  ma  jest  venture  to 
struggle,  but  I,  having  all  power  in  heaven  and  on  earth, 
charge  thee,  come  out  of  him  '  (cf.  Luke  iv.  35).  Nor  is  this 
all :  he  shall  *  enter  no  more  into  him ; '  his  return  is 
barred ;  he  shall  not  take  advantage  of  his  long  possession, 
presently  to  come  back  (Matt.  xii.  41),  and  reassert  his 
dominion ;  the  cure  shall  be  at  once  perfect  and  lasting. 
The  wicked  spirit  must  obey ;  but  he  does  so  most  un- 
willingly; what  he  can  no  longer  retain  he  would,  if  he 
might,  destroy ;  as  Fuller,  with  a  wit  which  is  *  in  season 
and  out  of  season,'  expresses  it,  '  like  an  outgoing  tenant, 
that  cares  not  what  mischief  he  does.' '  So  fearful  was 
this  last  paroxysm,  so  entirely  had  it  exhausted  all  the 
powers  of  the  child,  that  '  he  was  as  one  dead ;  insomuch 
that  many  said,  He  is  dead  ;  hut  Jesus  took  him  hy  the  hand,' 
and  life  from  that  touch  of  the  Lord  of  life  flowing  into 
him  anew  '  he  arose  ' :  even  as  often  elsewhere  a  revivify- 
ing power  is  by  the  same  channel  conveyed  (Dan.  x.  8,  9 ; 
Eev.  i.  17  ;  Matt.  xvii.  6-8). 

*  Then ' — '  when  He  was  come  into  the  house,'  as  we  learn 
from  St.  Mark — *  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus  apart,  and  said, 
Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out  ? '  Where  was  the  secret  of 
their  defeat,  seeing  that  they  were  not  exceeding  their 
commission  (Matt.  x.  8),  and  had  on  former  occasions 
found  the  devils  subject  to  them  (Luke  x.  17)  ?  'And  Jesus 
said  unto  them.  Because  of  your  unbelief,'  because  of  their 
lack  of  that  to  which,  and  to  which  only,  all  things  are 
possible.  They  had  made  but  a  languid  use  of  the  means 
for  stirring  up  and  increasing  faith ;  while  yet,  though 
the  locks  of  their  strength  were  shorn,  they  v/ould  *  go  out 

'  Gregory  the  Great  {Moral,  xxxii.  19):  Ecce  eum  non  discei-pserat 
cum  tenebat,  exiens  discerpsit :  quia  niniirum  tunc  pejus  cogitationes 
mentis  dilaniat,  cum  jam  egressui  divina  virtute  compulsus  appropinquat, 
Et  quem  mutus  possederat,  cum  clamoribus  deserebat:  quia  pleruinque 
cum  possidet,  minora  tentamenta  irrogat :  cum  vero  de  corde  pellitur, 
ncriori  infestatione  perturbat.  Cf.  Horn.  xii.  in  Ezek. ;  and  II.  de  Sto. 
Victove :  Bum  puer  ad  Dorainum  accedit,  eliditur:  quia  conversi  ad 
Dorainuni  plerumque  a  dajmonio  gravius  pulsantur,  ut  vel  ad  vitia  redu- 
cantur,  vel  de  sua  expulsione  se  vindicet  diabolus. 


THE  LUNATIC   CHILD.  393 

as  at  other  times  before '  against  their  enemies,  being 
certain  to  be  foiled  whenever  they  encountered  an  enemy 
of  peculiar  malignity.  And  such  they  encountered  here  ; 
for  the  phrase  '  this  hind '  marks  that  there  are  orders  of 
evil  spirits,  that  as  there  is  a  hierarchy  of  heaven,  so  is 
there  an  inverted  hierarchy  of  hell.  The  same  is  intimated 
in  the  mention  of  the  unclean  spirit  going  and  taking 
*  seven  other  spirits  more  wicked  than  himself^  (Matt.  sii. 
45) ;  and  at  Ephes.  vi.  12,  there  is  probably  a  climax, 
mounting  up  from  one  degree  of  spiritual  power  and 
malignity  to  another.  '  Tliis  kindy'  He  declares,  '  goeth 
not  out  but  by  prayer  and  fasting.'  The  faith  which  shall 
be  effectual  against  this  must  be  a  faith  exercised  in 
prayer,  that  has  not  relaxed  itself  by  an  habitual  com- 
pliance with  the  demands  of  the  lower  nature,  but  has 
often  girt  itself  up  to  an  austerer  rule,  to  rigour  and  self- 
denial. 

But  as  the  secret  of  all  weakness  is  in  unbelief,  so  of  all 
strength  in  faith :  '  For  verily  I  say  unto  you,  If  ye  have 
faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this  moun- 
tain, Remove  hence  to  yonder  place,  and  it  shall  remove;  aiul 
nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you.''  The  image  re-appears 
with  some  modifications,  Luke  xvii.  6 ;  and  St.  Paul  pro- 
bably alludes  to  these  words  of  his  Lord,  i  Cor.  xiii.  2. 
Many  explain  ^ faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed '  to  mean 
lively  faith,  with  allusion  to  the  keen  and  biting  powers  of 
that  grain.'  But  it  is  not  on  this  side  that  the  comparison 
should  be  urged ;  rather,  it  is  the  smallest  faith,  with  a 
tacit  contrast  between  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  a  very 
small  thing  (Matt.  xiii.  31,  32),  and  a  mountain,  a  very 
great.  That  smallest  shall  be  effectual  to  work  on  this 
largest.  The  least  spiritual  power,  which  is  really  such, 
shall  be  strong  to  overthrow  the  mightiest  powers  which 
are  merely  of  this  world. 

^  Augustine  {Sei-m.  ccxlvi.) :  Modicum  videtur  granum  sinapis ;  nihil 
contemtibilius  adspectu,  nihil  fortius  gustu.  Quod  quid  est  aliud,  nisi 
maximus  ardor  et  intima  vis  tidei  in  Ecolesiii? 


28.    THE  STATER  IN  THE  FISH'S  MOUTH. 
Matx.  xvii.  24-27. 

NO  other  Evangelist  records  this  miracle  but  St.  Mat- 
thew ;  and  before  we  close  our  examination  of  it,  it 
will  be  abundantly  clear  why,  if  we  meet  it  in  one  Gospel 
only,  then  in  that  which  is  eminently  the  Gospel  of  the 
kingdom,  of  the  King  and  the  King's  Son.  It  is  a  miracle 
full  of  the  profoundest  teaching ;  though  its  true  depth 
and  significance  have  not  always  been  seized ;  have  been 
sometimes  lost  and  let  go  altogether ;  for  indeed  the  entire 
transaction  is  emptied  of  all  higher  meaning  when  it  is 
assumed  that  the  *  tribute '  here  demanded  of  the  Lord  was 
a  civil  impost,  owing,  like  the  penny  of  a  later  occasion 
(Matt.  xxii.  19),  to  the  Roman  emperor,  and  not  a  national 
and  theocratic  payment,  due  to  the  temple  and  the  tem- 
ple's God.  But  this  is  a  matter  which  we  must  not  an- 
ticipate. 

Our  Lord,  we  may  presume,  with  Peter  and  other  of  his 
disciples,  was  returning,  after  one  of  his  usual  absences,  to 
Capernaum,  his  own  city.'  The  collectors  of  the  temple- 
dues  may  have  been  withheld  by  a  certain  awe  from  ad- 
dressing Him,  and  He  may  have  thus  passed  without 
question  ;  but  they  detain  Peter,  who  perhaps  had  lin- 
gered a  little  behind  his  Lord,  and  of  him  they  ask, 
*  Doth  not  your  Master  jpay  tribute  ? '  or,  as  I  should  much 
prefer  to  see  it  rendered,  ^  Doth  not  your  Master  pay  the 
didrachms  ? '  2  '  Tribute '  is  here  on  many  accounts  an  unfor- 

*  See  Greswell,  Dissertations,  vol.  ii.  p.  374,  seq. 

'  T()  oicpaxua,  with  tl)e  article,  as  something  perfectly  well  known :  in 


THE  STATER  IN  THE  FISH'S  MOUTH.        395 

mnate  rendering,  nplioiding  and  indeed  suggesting  a 
misapprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  whole  incident; 
which,  even  without  the  inducement  of  this  faulty  render- 
ing, has  been  often  enough  altogether  misunderstood. 
Thus  Clement  of  Alexandria,'  Origen,  Augustine,^  Jerome, 
Sedulius,^  all  understand  by  this  '  tribute '  a  civil  payment; 
finding  here  the  same  lesson  as  at  Rom.  xiii.  i  -7  :  '  Let 

every  soul  be  subject  to  the  higher  powers 

Eender  therefore  to  all  their  dues,  tribute  to  whom  tribute 
is  due,' — the  lesson,  that  is,  of  a  willing  obedience  to  the 
civil  power. 

But  these  and  others  have  gone  astray,  I  am  persuaded, 
more  from  not  having  the  right  interpretation  before  them, 
than  from  any  deliberate  preference  of  the  wrong.  For 
indeed  the  proofs  that  what  is  demanded  here  is  not 
tribute  to  Csesar,  but  dues  to  the  temple,  are  such  as  ought 
to  be  convincing  to  every  one  before  whom  they  are  fairly 
brought.     For,  in  the  first  place,  this  '  didrachm'*  which 

tlie  plural  on  the  first  occasion,  to  mark  the  mnnher  of  didrachms  that 
from  the  whole  people  were  received,  being  one  from  each  person ;  on 
the  second,  to  marli  the  yearly  repetition  of  the  payment  from  each. 

*  Tor  rrraTiifxi  nnc  rtXiin'ati;  cuvc^  tu  Kwiapoi;  d-oCi,ix  7(1]  Kainapi. 

^  De  Catechiz  Hud.  21  :  Ipse  Dominus,  ut  nobis  hiijus  sante  doctrince 
pr.xberet  exempliim,  pro  capite  hominis,  quo  erat  indutus,  tributum  sol- 
vere non  dedignatus  est. 

*  Tributum  Ctesaieum  he  calls  it.  Add  to  these  Calvin,  who  however 
has  a  glimpse  of  the  truth,  and  Maldonatus,  for  once  consentijig  with 
him  who  is  the  great  object  of  his  polemical  hate.  "VVolf  in  like  manner 
(CurcE,  in  loc.)  has  the  wrong  imerpretation ;  and  Petitus  (Crit.  <Vc?c.  ix. 
2566);  Corn.  aLapide;  and  recently,  after  any  further  mistake  seemed 
impos.-iible,  Wieseler  {Chro/wl.  Synopse,  p.  265,  seq.)  has  returned  to  the 
old  error.  Tlie  true  meaning  has  been  perfectly  seized  by  Hilary  (in 
loc);  by  Ambrose  (^Ep.  vii.  ad  Justum,  12) ;  in  the  main  by  Chrysostom 
{In  Matt.  Horn,  liv.)  and  Tlieophylact,  who  have  yet  both  gone  astray 
upon  Num.  iii.  40-51 ;  by  Theodoret  (  Qucest.  in  Isvm.  Inter.  9) ;  and  in 
later  times  by  Cameron  {Crit.  Sac.  in  loc);  by  Freher  {Ibid.  vol.  ix. 
p.  3633);  by  Jeremy  Taylor  {Life  of  Christ,  part  iii.  §  xiv.  13);  by 
Hammond,  Grotius,  Lightfoot,  Bengel,  Michaelis,  Olshausen,  Stier, 
Greswell  {Dissert,  vol.  ii.  p.  376),  Alford,  and  Ellicott  {Life  of  our  Lord, 
p.  229). 

*  In  the  Septuagint  (Exod.  xxx.  13)  i'lfitav  roD  hcpu^tiov,  they  express 
themselves,   as  naturally   they   would,   according  to   the  Alexandrian 

26 


396  THE  STATER  IN 

the  collectors  here  demand,  was  exactly  the  ransom  of  souls, 
the  half  shekel  (Exod.  xxx.  11-16)  to  be  paid  by  every 
Israelite  above  twenty  years  old  to  the  service  and  current 
expenses  of  the  tabernacle,  or,  as  it  afterwards  would  be, 
of  the  temple.^  Certainly  it  does  not  appear  at  first  as  an 
annual  payment,  but  only  as  payable  on  the  occasions,  not 
frequently  recurring,  of  the  numbering  of  the  people.  But  it 
became  annual,  whether  this  had  been  the  real  intention 
from  the  first,  or  out  of  a  later  custom.  Thus  there  are 
distinct  notices  of  this  payment  in  the  time  of  the  Jewish 
kings.  Joash  sets  apart  for  the  reparation  of  the  temple 
funds  to  be  derived  from  three  sources  (2  Kin.  xii.  4)  ;  the 
first  being  this  half  shekel,  '  the  collection  that  Moses  the 
servant  of  God  laid  upon  Israel  in  the  wilderness,'  as  it  is 
called  in  the  contemporary  record  in  the  Chronicles  (2 
Chron.  xxiv.  9).^     At  a  later  day,  it  is  the  ndrd  part  of  a 

drachm,  -wljicli  was  twice  the  value  of  the  Attic  (see  Hammond,  in 
loc). 

^  Before  the  Babylonian  exile,  the  shekel  was  only  a  certain  weight  of 
silver,  not  a  coin.  The  Maccabees,  however  (i  Mace.  xv.  6),  received 
the  privilege,  or  won  the  right,  from  the  kings  of  Syria  of  coining  their 
own  money ;  and  the  shekels,  half  shekels,  and  quarter  shekels  now  in 
the  cabinets  of  collectors  are  to  be  referred  to  their  time.  These  growing 
scarce,  and  not  being  coined  any  more,  it  became  the  custom  to  estimate 
the  temple-dues  as  two  drachms  (the  SiSpaxfiov  here  required),  a  sum 
actually  somewhat  larger  than  the  half  shekel,  as  shown  by  a  comparison 
of  existing  specimens  of  each  ;  thus  Josephus  (Antt,  iii.  8.  2)  :  'O  6k  (ti'kXoc, 
viminjin  'Efipaiojv  iuv,  'ArriKf/f  Six^Tai  ^pa^ftdt;  rsaaapai;,      As  the  produce  of 

the  miracle  was  to  pay  for  two  persons,  the  sum  required  was  four 
drachms,  or  a  whole  shekel,  and  the  ararijp  found  in  the  mouth  of  the 
fish,  often  called  nrpaSpaxfiog,  is  just  that  sum.  Jerome  :  Siclus  autem, 
id  est  stater,  habet  drachmas  quatuor.  This  stater  is  not  of  course  the 
gold  coin  more  accurately  so  called,  equivalent  not  to  four,  but  to 
twenty,  drachms;  but  the  silver  tetradrachm,  which  in  later  times  of 
Greece  was  called  a  stater.  That  other  stater,  equal  to  the  Persian  daric, 
was  worth  something  more  than  sixteen  shillings  of  our  money,  this 
three  shillings  and  three  pence  (see  the  I}ict.  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Antt, 
8.  vv.  Drachma  and  Stater ;  Winer,  Reahvorterbuch,  s.  v.  Sekel ;  and  the 
Diet,  of  the  Bible,  art.  Money,  vol.  ii.  p.  409).  It  is  curious  that  Theophy- 
lact  should  be  ignorant  of  what  this  stater  is.  Some  think  it,  he  says,  a 
precious  stone  found  in  Syria. 

*  So  Dathe  and  Keil;  Michaelis  {Mos.  Eecht,  vol,  iii.  p.  202)  questiona 
or  denies  it 


THE  FISirS  MOUTH.  397 

shekel,  and  not  the  half,  which  the  Jews  impose  upon 
themselves  (Nehem.  x.  32).  This  might  suggest  a  doubt 
whether  the  same  contribution  is  there  intended  ;  as  they 
would  scarcely  have  ventured  to  alter  the  amount  of  a 
divinely  instituted  payment,  let  the  fact  that  it  was 
yearly,  and  expressly  ibr  the  service  of  God's  house,  will 
not  allow  us  to  suppose  it  any  other  ;  and  they  may  have 
found  in  their  present  poverty  and  distress  an  excuse  for 
the  diminution  of  the  charge.  It  was  an  annual  payment 
in  the  time  of  Josephus.^  Philo  attests  the  conscientious 
and  ungrudging  accuracy  with  which  it  was  paid  by  the 
Jews  of  the  Dispersion,  so  that  in  almost  every  city  of  the 
Empire,  and  in  cities  too  beyond  its  limits,  there  was  a 
sacred  chest  for  the  collection  of  these  dues  :  the  sum  of 
which  at  stated  times  sacred  messengers  were  selected 
from  among  the  worthiest  to  bear  to  Jerusalem.^  It  was 
Vespasian  who  diverted  this  capitation  tax  into  the  im- 
perial fisc,  but  only  after  the  city  and  the  temple  had  been 
destroyed.  Josephus  is  very  distinct  on  this  point;  I 
quote  his  words,  as  the  sole  argument  in  favour  of  a  secular 
and  not  a  theocratic  payment  is,  that  before  this  time,  as 
early  as  Pompeius,  these  moneys  had  been  turned  from 
their  original  destination,  and  made  payable  to  the  Roman 
exchequer.  Of  Vespasian  he  writes  :  *  He  imposed  a  tri- 
bute on  the  Jews  wheresoever  they  lived,  requiring  each 

'  Antt.  xviii.  9.  i.  It  should  be  paid  between  the  15th  and  25th  of 
the  month  Adar  (March),  that  is,  about  the  feast  of  the  passover.  Yet 
no  secure  chronological  conclusions  in  regard  to  our  Lord's  ministry  can 
be  won  from  this ;  as,  through  his  absence  from  Capernaum,  the  money 
might  have  been  for  some  time  due.  Indeed,  the  feast  of  tabernacles 
was  probably  now  at  hand. 

^  De  Monarch,  ii.  3  :   'ifpoTro/iTro/    toiv  ypriuitriov  apinrn'rrtv  liriKpiOivTic. 

The  whole  passage  reminds  one  much  of  the  collection,  and  the  manner 
of  the  transmission,  of  the  gifts  of  the  faithful  in  Achaia  to  Jerusalem  by 
the  hands  of  Paul ;  cf.  his  Leg.  ad  Cat.  §  31.  We  find  from  Cicero  (Pro 
Flacco,  28),  that  one  charge  against  Flaccus  was  that  he  prevented  the 
transmission  of  these  temple-dues  to  Jerusalem :  Cum  aurum,  Juda?orum 
nomine,  quotannis  ex  Italia  et  ex  omnibus  vestris  provir.ciis  Ilieroso- 
lymam  exportari  soleret,  Flaccus  sanxit  edicto,  ne  ex  Asia  exportari 
licfcret. 


39^^  THE   STATER  IN 

to  pay  yearly  two  draclims  to  the  Capitol,  as  before  tliey 
were  wont  to  pay  them  to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.'*  But 
of  Pompeius  he  merely  afl&rms,  t)aat  '  he  made  Jerusalem 
tributary  to  the  Romans,'  ^  with  no  mention  of  this  tax  at 
all.  We  have  alrea.dy  had  abundant  evidence  that  lon.-^ 
after  his  time  it  continued  to  be  rendered  to  the  temple. 
Titus  alludes  to  this  fact,  when,  upbraiding  the  Jews  with 
the  unprovoked  character  of  their  revolt,  he  reminds  the 
revolters  that  the  Eomans  had  permitted  them  to  collect 
their  own  sacred  imposts. 

We  note  further  that  it  is  not  '  publicans  '  who  demand 
tliis  tribute,  as  the  collectors  would  certainly  have  been 
called,  had  they  been  the  ordinary  tax-gatherers,  and  this 
an  ordinary  tax.  As  little  is  the  tone  of  the  demand, 
'  Doth  not  your  Master  pay  the  didrachms  ? '  that  of  a  rude 
Roman  tax-gatherer,  who  had  detected  one  in  the  act  of 
evading,  as  he  supposed,  the  tax ;  but  is  exactly  what  we 
might  expect,  where  the  duty  was  one  of  imperfect  obliga- 
tion, which  if  any  declined,  the  payment  could  scarcely 
have  been  enforced.*  To  Chrysostom,  indeed,  the  question 
sounds  a  rude  one  :  *  Does  your  Master  count  Himself  ex- 
empt from  the  payment  of  the  ordinary  dues  ?  We  know 
the  freedom  which  He  claims  ;  does  He  propose  to  exercise 
it  here  ?  '  It  is,  as  Theophylact  suggests,  more  probably 
the  reverse.  Having  seen  or  heard  of  the  wonderful  works 
which  Christ  did,  they  may  have  been  uncertain  in  what 
light  to  regard  Him,  whether  to  claim  from  Him  the 
money  or  not,  and  this  doubt  may  utter  itself  in  their 
question. 

1  B.  J.  vii.  6.  6. 

^  A.ntt.  xiv.  4.  4  ;   Ta  ^liv  'JipnaoXvfia  ij7roTt\t)  (pupov  'Poi/iai'oif  inoirintv. 

*  Kuinoel  (in  loc),  one  of  the  ri<rht  interpreters  of  this  incident,  ob- 
serves this:  Exactores  Roniani  acerbius  hand  dubie  exegissent  tributum 
Csesari  solvendum.  And  in  the  Rabbinical  treatise  especially  relating  to 
the  manner  of  collecting  these  dues,  it  is  said:  Placid*^  a  quovis  seniisi- 
clum  expetierunt.  Grotius:  Credibile  est  multos,  quia  nou  cogebantur. 
id  onus  detrectasse. 


THE  FISirS  MOUTH.  399 

Peter,  zealous  for  his  Master's  lionour,  sure  tliat  his  piety 
will  make  Him  prompt  to  render  to  God  the  things  which 
are  God's,  pledges  Him  without  hesitation  to  the  payment : 
'  he  saith,  YesJ'  Certainly  he  was  over-hasty  in  this.  Not 
in  this  spirit  had  he  exclaimed  a  little  while  before, '  Thou 
art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God  '  (Matt.  xvi.  16). 
For  the  time  at  least  he  had  lost  sight  of  his  Lord's  true 
position  and  prerogative,  that  He  was  a  Son  over  his  own 
house,  and  not  a  servant  in  another's ;  the  Head  of  the 
theocracy,  not  one  of  its  subordinate  members, — so  that 
it  was  to  Him  in  his  Father  that  offerings  were  to  be 
made,  not  from  Him  to  be  received.'  It  was  not  for  Him 
who  was  '  greater  than  the  temple,'  and  Himself  the  true 
temj)le  (John  ii.  21 ;  Heb.  x.  20),  identical  with  it  accord- 
ing to  its  spiritual  significance,  and  in  whom  the  Shechinali 
glory  dwelt,  to  pay  dues  for  the  support  of  that  other 
temple  built  with  hands,  whose  glory  was  vanishing  away, 
now  that  in  his  flesh  the  true  tabernacle  was  set  up,  which, 
the  Lord  had  pitched  and  not  man.  He  who  should  give 
Himself  a  ransom  for  all  other  souls  could  not  properly 
pay  a  ransom  for  his  own ;  and  it  disturbed,  or  at  least 
obscured,  the  true  relation  between  Him  and  all  other  men 
that  He  should  even  seem  to  pay  it.  Willing  therefore  to 
bring  back  Peter,  and  in  him  the  other  disciples,  to  the 
true  recognition  of  Himself,  from  which  they  had  in  part 
fallen,  the  Lord  puts  to  him  the  question  which  follows. 
With  the  same  intention,  being  thus  engaged  through 
Peter's  hasty  imprudence  to  the  rendering  of  the  didrachm, 
which  now  He  can  scarcely  recede  from,  He  yet  does  it  in 
the  remarkable  way  of  this  present  miracle — a  miracle 
which  should  testify  that  all  things  served  Him,  from  the 

'  Ambrose  {Ep.  Tii.  ad  Justum,  12)  :  Hoc  est  igitur  didrachma,  quod 
exip-ebatur  secundum  legem:  sed  non  debebat  illud  filius  regis,  sed 
alienus.  Quid  enim  se  Christus  rediraeret  ab  hoc  mundo,  qui  venerat  ut 
tolleret  peccatum  mundi  ?  Quid  se  a  peecato  redimeret,  qui  descenderat, 
ut  omnibus  peccatum  dimitteret?  .  .  .  Quid  se  redimeret  a  morte,  qui 
carnem  susceperat,  ut  morte  sua  omnibus  resurrectionem  adquireret? 
Cf.  Enaj-r.  in  Ps.  xlviii.  14. 


400  THE  STATER  IN 

greatest  to  the  least,  even  to  tlie  fishes  that  wandered 
through  the  paths  of  the  sea, — that  He  was  Lord  over 
nature,  and,  having  nothing,  yet,  in  his  Father's  care  for 
Him,  was  truly  possessed  of  all  things.'  For  here,  as  so 
often  in  the  life  of  our  Lord,  the  depth  of  his  poverty  and 
humiliation  is  lighted  up  by  a  gleam  of  his  glory ;  while, 
by  the  manner  of  the  payment,  He  re-asserts  the  true 
dignity  of  his  person,  which  else  by  the  payment  itself  was 
in  danger  of  being  obscured  and  compromised  in  the  eyes 
of  some.  The  miracle,  then,  was  to  supply  a  real  need, — 
slight,  indeed,  as  an  outward  need,  for  the  money  could 
assuredly  have  been  in  some  other  and  more  ordinary  way 
procured ;  but  as  an  inner  need,  most  real :  in  this,  then, 
differing  in  its  essence  from  the  apocryphal  miracles,  which 
are  so  often  mere  sports  and  freaks  of  power,  having  no 
ethical  motive  or  meaning  whatever. 

We  may  trace  this  purpose  in  all  which  follows.  The 
Lord  does  not  wait  for  Peter  to  inform  Him  what  he  had 
answered,  and  to  what  engaged  Him ;  but  '  when  he  ivas 

'  Djeleladdin's  [;rand  poem  (see  Tholuck,  SVuthensamm.  ans  der 
Morgc7il.  Myst.  p.  14.8)  tells  exactly  the  same  story,  namely,  that  all 
nature  waits  on  the  friend  of  God.  so  that  all  things  are  his,  and  his 
seeming  poverty  is  but  another  side  of  his  true  riches;  only  that  what 
there  is  but  in  idea,  is  here  clothed  in  the  flesh  and  blood  of  an  actual  fact. 
I  can  give  but  a  most  inadequate  extract  from  the  German  translation  : 

Adham  Ibrahim  sass  einst  am  Meeresstrand, 
Nahte  dort  als  Bettler  sich  sein  Monchgewaud. 
Plotzlich  tritt  ein  Emir  mit  Gefolg'  ihn  an, 
Der  Tormals  dem  Seelenkonig  unterthan, 
Kiisst  den  Fuss  ihm,  und  wird  alsobald  verwint, 
Da  den  Scheich  er  in  der  Kutt'  ansichtig  wird. 
Den,  dem  einst  gehorcht'  ein  weites  Landgebiet, 
Staunend  er  jetzt  seine  Kutte  niihen  sieht. 
«  •  * 

Drauf  der  Scheich  die  Nadel  plotzlicb  wirft  in's  Meer, 

Euft  dann  laut :  Ihr  Fi.«che,  bringt  die  I^''adel  her  ! 

Alsbald  ragen  hunderttausend  Kopf  hervor, 

Jeder  Fiscli  bringt  eine  goklne  Nadel  vor. 

Nun  der  Scheich  mit  Ernst  sich  zu  dem  Emir  kehrt : 

Wunderst  du  dich  noch,  dass  ich  die  Kutt'  begehrt? 


THE  FISirS  MGUTIL  401 

come  into  the  house,  Jesus  i^revented  him,'  anticipated  his 
communication,  showed  Himself  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  heart,  and,  thouojh  He  had  not  been  present,  per- 
fectly aware  of  all  which  had  passed.^  *  What  thinkest 
thou,  Simon  ?  Of  whom,  do  the  Icings  of  the  earth  '  (with  an 
emphasis  on  the  last  words,  for  there  is  a  silent  contrasting 
of  these  with  the  King  of  heaven,  as  at  Ps.  ii.  2)  '  take 
custom  or  tribute?^  of  their  own  children,  or  of  strangers  P'* 
On  what  principle  has  he  been  promising  this  ?  is  not 
all  the  analogy  of  things  earthly  against  it  ?  These  earthly 
things,  it  is  true,  cannot  prove  the  heavenly,  yet  are  they 
shadows  of  the  true,  and  divinely  appointed  helps  for  the 
better  understanding  of  them.  When  Peter  confesses  that 
not  of  their  own  children,  but  '  of  strangers,'  then  at  once 
He  brings  him  to  the  conclusion  whither  He  was  leading 
him,  that  ^  the  children,'  or  as  it  would  have  been  better 
rendered,  '  the  sons,'  were  'free.'^ 

We  have  here  proof  absolute,  if  further  proof  were 
needed,  that  this  which  was  demanded  of  the  Lord  was 

^  Jerome :  Antequam  Petriis  suggeret,  Dominus  interrogat,  ne  scan- 
dalizentur  discipuli  ad  postulationem  tributi,  quuin  videant  euui  nosse 
quoe  absente  se  gesta  sunt. 

^  K;";rfTo:;,  the  Capitation  tax;  rf,\»/,  customs  or  tolls  on  goods. 

'  It  is  not  easy  to  translate  aWorfnwi'  here.  It  is  not  so  strong  as  our 
'  strangers,^  or  as  the  alieni  of  the  Vulgate,  or  as  Luther's,  von  Fremden. 
It  means  no  more  than  those  that  stand  not  in  the  immediate  relation  of 
v'loi  to  the  king  (qui  non  pertinent  ad  familiam  regis :  Kuinoel) ;  '  of 
other  folk'  (Hammond);  von  andern  Leuten  (De  Wette).  Compare 
for  this  use  of  a-Worpoc,  Ecclus.  xl.  29.  Gfrorer  (/)ee  Heil.  Sage,  vol.  ii. 
p.  56),  stumbling  at  the  whole  story,  finds  fault  -n-ith  this  interpretation, 
because,  forsooth,  the  Jews  were  not  aWoTpun, — as  though  they  were  not 
so  in  comparison  with  Christ ;  and,  again,  because  they  too  were  i-loi 
Ofor-, — as  though  they  were  so  in  any  such  sense  as  He  was.  For  him 
and  for  all  like  him,  to  whom  there  is  nothing  in  Christ  different  from 
another  man,  the  narrative  does,  in  his  own  words,  '  suffer  under  incura- 
ble difficulties.' 

*  With  a  play  on  the  words,  which  is  probably  much  more  than  a 
mere  play,  and  rests  upon  a  true  etymology,  so  witnessing  for  the  very 
truth  which  Christ  is  asserting  here,  we  might  say  in  Latin,  Liberi  sunt 
liberi  (see  Freund,  Lat.  Worterhuch,  s.  v.  liber) ;  these  very  words  occur- 
ring in  the  noble  Easter  hymn  beginning, 

Cedant  justi  signa  luctus. 


4-02  THE  STATER  IN 

God's  money,  to  be  rendered  to  God,  and  not  Caesar's,  to  be 
rendered  to  Csesar,  seeing  that  only  on  tliis  assumption 
could  He  have  claimed  immunity  for  Himself,  as  He  does 
in  those  words,  ^Then  are  the  children  free.^  But  with  a 
payment  owing  to  Caesar  it  would  have  been  quite  a  different 
thing.  He  was  no  son  of  Ca3sar.  The  fact  that  the 
children  are  free  would  have  involved  no  exemption  to 
Him.  He  might,  indeed,  have  asserted  his  freedom  on 
other  grounds ;  though  that  He  would  not,  since  He  had 
come  submitting  Himself  during  his  earthly  life  to  every 
ordinance  of  man.  They  who  deny  this  have  no  choice 
but  to  appeal  to  his  royal  Davidical  descent,  as  that  in 
right  of  which  He  challenges  this  freedom.  But  no  real 
help  is  to  be  gotten  there.  Christ  would  then  argue,  that 
being  one  King's  Son,  He  therefore  was  exempted  from  the 
tribute  owing  to  another  king,  and  that  other,  one  of  an 
adverse  dynasty, — in  itself  an  argument  most  futile,  and 
certainly  not  that  of  the  sacred  text.' 

The  plural  here,'  the  sons,' rather  thana  singular,  'theson,' 
has  perplexed  some,  who  have  asked.  How  could  the  Lord 
thus  speak,  if  indeed  He  had  only  Himself,  as  the  only- 
begotten  Son  of  God,  in  his  eye  ?  The  explanation  is  eas3% 
In  making  a  general  statement  of  the  worldly  relations  from 
which  He  borrows  his  analogy,  and  by  which  He  assists  the 
understanding  of  his  disciples,  as  there  are  man}^ '  ki7igs  of 
the  earth,'  or  as  one  king  might  have  many  sons.  He 
naturally  throws  his  speech  into  a  plural  form  ;  and  it  is 
just  as  natural,  when  we  come  to  the  heavenly  order  of 
things  which  is  there  shadowed  forth,  to  restrain  it  to  the 
singular,  to  the  one  Son ;  seeing  that  to  the  King  of  heaven 
there  is  but  One,  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father.'^    But  if 

*  Augustine  indeed  (Qucest.  Evang.  i.  qu.  23)  helps  it  out  in  another 
•way :  In  omni  regno  terreno  intelligenduni  est  liberos  esse  regni  filios.  .  . 
Multo  ergo  magis  liberi  esse  debent  in  quolibet  regno  terreno  lilii  regni 
illius,  sub  quo  sunt  omnia  regna  terrena. 

*  Grotius :  Plurali  numero  utitur,  non  quod  ad  alios  earn  extendat 
libertatem,  sed  quod  comparatio  id  exigebat,  sumta  non  ab  uaius  sed  ab 
oumium  regum  more  ac  consuetudine. 


THE  FISirS  MOUTH.  403 

tlie  plural  here  noed cause  us  no  misgiving,  as  littlecan  tliere 
be  drawn  from  it  the  conclusion,  that  the  Lord  intended  to 
include  in  this  liberty  not  Himself  only,  but  all  his  people, 
all  that  in  this  secondary  sense  are  the  '  sons  of  God.' ' 
This  plainly  is  not  true  concerning  dues  owing  to  God ; 
none  are  so  bound  to  render  them  as  his  '  sons.'  Were 
the  payment  in  question  a  civil  one,  it  would  be  equally 
untrue ;  however  such  an  interpretation  might  be  welcome 
to  Anabaptists ;  ^  however  some  extreme  Romish  canonists 
may  have  found  here  an  argument  for  the  exemption  of 
the  clergy  from  payments  to  the  State,  although  others 
among  themselves  justly  remark  that  the  words,  if  they 
include  any  of  the  faithful,  must  include  all.^  Not  thus, 
not  as  one  of  many,  not  as  the  first  among  many  brethren, 
but  as  the  true  and  only  Son  of  God,  He  challenges  this 
liberty  for  Himself;  and  *we  may  observe,  by  the  way, 
that  the  reasoning  itself  is  a  strong  and  convincing  testi- 
mony to  the  proper  Sonship,  and  in  the  capacity  of  Son 
to  the  proper  relationship  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Father, 
which   those  who  deny  that  relationship  will  not  easily 

^  So  however  Cocceius,  wlio  urges  all  which  can  be  said  for  this  appli- 
cation of  the  words:  Christiis  ostendit  nee  se,  qui  Filius  Dei  est,  obligari 
ad  didrachma  solvendum,  tanquam  Xvrpor  aniniaj  sure,  nee  suos  discipulos, 
qui  ab  ipso  hoereditant  libertatem,  et  non  argento  redinmntur  (Es.  Hi.  3), 
sed  pretioso  ipsius  sanguine  (i  Pet.  i.  18,  19),  et  facti  sunt  filii  Dei  vivi 
(IIos.  i.  10),  amplius  teneri  ad  servitutem  figur?e.  Olshausen  follows 
him  in  this,  and  the  author  of  an  interesting  article  on  this  miracle  in 
the  Diet,  of  the  Bihle,  s.  v.  Tribute. 

^  The  Anabaptist  conclusions  which  might  be  drawn  from  an  abuse  of 
the  passage  are  met  on  right  general  grounds  by  Aquinas  {Sum.  Theol. 
2*  2"=,  104,  art.  6),  though  he  has  no  very  precise  insight  into  the  mean- 
ing of  this  history.  Milton,  not  always  a  fair  controversialist,  is  a 
singularly  unfair  one  in  the  use  which  he  makes  of  this  Scripture  {De~ 
fence  of  the  J'eople  of  England,  3). 

^  Tirinus:  Nam  pari  jure  oniues  ju«ti,immo  omnes  Christiani  exempti 
essent.  Compare  Field,  Of  the  CJiurch,  b.  5.  ch.  53.  Michaelis  affirms 
that  others  have  pushed  these  words  to  the  asserting  of  the  same  liberty 
(Mos.  Pecht,  vol.  iii.  p.  210);  that  he  has  himself,  in  travelling,  seen  a 
Pietist  cheat  the  revenue  before  his  eyes  :  who,  when  charged  with  this, 
pleaded  in  defence  the  words,  '  Then  are  the  children  free,^  The  story  is, 
unhappily,  onlv  *oo  welcome  to  him. 


4-04  THE  STATER  IN 

evade  or  impugn.'  '  There  is  in  these  words  the  samo 
implicit  assertion  that  Christ's  relation  to  God  is  a  dif- 
ferent one  from  that  of  other  men,  which  runs  through  the 
parable  of  the  Wicked  Husbandmen,  in  the  distinction 
which  is  so  markedly  drawn  between  the  son  of  the  house- 
holder and  his  servants  (Mark  xii.  6 ) :  nor  are  there  any 
testimonies  to  the  dignity  and  the  prerogatives  of  the  Son 
more  convincing  than  these,  which,  not  contained  in  single 
isolated  expressions,  not  lying  on  the  surface  of  Scripture, 
are  bedded  deeply  in  it,  and  rather  assume  his  preeminence 
than  declare  it.  It  is  true  that  for  those  determined  not 
to  be  convinced,  there  is  always  a  loophole  of  escape,  as 
from  other  declarations,  so  also  from  these  ;  in  the  present 
instance,  the  plural  '  sons '  affords,  for  those  who  seek  it, 
the  desired  opportunity  of  evasion. 

Under  this  protest  Christ  will  pay  the  money.  '  Not- 
toithstanding,  lest  we  should  offend  them,  go  thou  to  the  sea, 
and  cast  an  hooh,  and  take  ^ip  the  fish  that  first  cometh  up  ;  ' 
the  fish,  that  is,  which  first  ascended  from  the  deeper 
waters  to  his  hook  ;  '  and  when  thou  hast  opened  his  mouth, 
thou  shalt  fiind  apiece  of  money.''  He  will  put  no  stumbling- 
block  in  the  way  of  any,  but  provide  things  honest  in  the 
sight  of  all.  Were  He  now  to  refuse  this  pavment,  it 
might  seem  to  those  who  knew  not  the  transcendant 
secret  of  his  birth  that  He  was  affecting  a  false  liberty,'^ 

^  Greswell,  Dissert,  vol.  ii.  p.  736;  so  too  Chrvsostom.  I  know  not 
•whether  this  passage  was  used  by  the  Catholics  in  the  Arian  controversy ; 
but  Hilary,  a  confessor  and  standard-bearer  for  the  truth  in  that  great 
conflict,  brings  out  well  how  the  Godhead  of  Christ  is  involved  in  this 
argument  {Connn.  in  Matt,  in  loc.)  :  Didrachma  tamquam  ab  homine 
poscebatur  a  Christo.  Sed  ut  ostenderet  legi  se  non  esse  subjectum,  «^ 
in  se  paterncs  dignitatis  gloriam  contestaretur,  terreni  privilegii  posuit 
exemplum :  censu  aut  tributis  reguni  fillos  non  teneri,  potiusque  se 
Eedemtorem  auimfe  nostrne  corporisque  esse  quara  in  redemtionem  sui 
aliquid  postulandum;  quia  Regis  Filium  extra  comnunnoneni  oporteret 
esse  reliquorum. 

"^  Chrvsostom  {Horn.  Ixiv.  in  Juh.)  gives  to  these  words,  ^  Lest  we 
should  offend  them,''  another  turn — lest,  when  this  secret  of  our  heavenly 
birth,  and  our  consequent  exemption  from  tribute,  is  told  them,  they 


THE  FISirS   MOUTH.  405 

was  come  not  to  fulfil  tlie  law,  but  to  destroy  it.  There 
was  indeed  no  need,  only  a  decorum,  in  tlie  payment ;  as 
there  was  no  necessity  for  his  baptism  ;  it  was  that  whereto 
of  his  own  choice  He  willingly  submitted ;  nor  yet  for  the 
circumcision  which  He  received  in  his  flesh ;  but  He  took 
on  Him  the  humiliations  of  the  law,  that  He  might  in  due 
time  deliver  from  under  the  law. 

And  here  is  the  explanation  of  the  very  significant  fact 
that  the  Lord  should  make  this  payment  not  for  Himself 
only,  but  also  for  Peter,  the  representative  of  all  the 
faithful.  He  came  under  the  same  yoke  with  men,  that 
they  might  enter  into  the  same  freedom  with  Him.' 
^  That  taJce,^  and  give  tmto  them  for  Me  and  thee.'  ^  Capernaum 
was  the  place  of  Peter's  domicile  (Matt.  viii.  5,  14)  as  well 
as  tlie  Lord's ;  the  place  therefore  where  his  '  trib^ite,'  no 

should  be  unable  to  receive  it;  and  we  should  thus  have  put  a  stuniblinf^- 
block  in  their  path,  revealing  to  them  mysteries  wliicli  they  are  unablfc' 
to  receive. 

'  Ambrose  (Ep.  vii.  ad  Just  inn,  18)  :  Ideo  didrachrauni  solvi  jubet  pro 
se  et  Petro,  quia  uterque  sub  lege  generati.  Jubet  ergo  secundum  len-era 
solvi,  ut  eos  qui  sub  lege  erant  redimeret.  And  Augustine,  upon  I's. 
cxxxvii.  8  :  Domine,  retribues  pro  me,  adduces  this  historv  :  Nihil  debe- 
bat:  pro  se  non  reddidit,  sed  pro  nobis  reddidit;  and  again  (Serm. 
civ.  7):  Mysterium  latebat:  Christus  tamen  tributum  non  debitiim 
persolvebat.  Sic  persolvit  et  mortem  ;  non  debebat,  et  persolvebat. 
Ille  nisi  indebitum  solveret,  nunquam  nos  a  debito  liberaret.  Jerome 
(in  loc.)  :  Ut  ostenderetur  similitudo  carnis,  dum  eodem  et  servus  et 
Dominus  pretio  liberantur. 

2  Moule  {Heraldry  of  Fish)  gives  the  ndtural  mythology  connected 
•with  this  miracle :  '  A  popular  idea  assigns  the  dark  marks  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  haddock  to  the  impression  left  by  St.  Peter  with  his  tiuoer 
and  thumb,  when  he  took  the  tribute-money  out  of  the  fish's  mouth  at 
Capernaum ;  but  the  haddock  certainly  does  not  now  exist  in  the  seas  of 

the  country  where  the  miracle  was  performed The  dory,  called 

St.  Peter's  fish  in  several  countries  of  Europe,  contends  with  the  haddock 
the  honour  of  bearing  the  marks  of  the  Apostle's  fingers,  an  impression 
transmitted  to  posterity  as  a  perpetual  memorial  of  the  miracle.  The 
name  of  the  dory  is  hence  asserted  to  be  derived  from  the  French  adore, 
worshipped.' 

^  In  this  c'lfTi  iftov  Kfii  >^ov  (cf.  ^fatt.  xx.  28;  and  Winer,  Gramm. 
§  51,  5  a)  lies  another  proof  that  we  have  here  a  ransom  for  persons,  a 
price  given  in  their  stead,  with  a  reference  to  the  original  institution  of 
this  payment;  and  so  another  argument,  if  that  were  needed,  for  the 
truth  of  our  interpretation. 


4-06  THE  STATER  IN 

less  than  the  Lord's,  would  be  due.  Christ  says  not  *  for 
us,''  but  ^for  Me  and  th^e ; '  as  elsewhere,  '  I  ascend  unto 
my  Father  and  yo^tr  Father,  and  to  my  God,  and  yoitr  God* 
(John  XXV.  17)  ;  for,  even  while  He  makes  common  part 
with  his  brethren,  He  yet  does  this  by  an  act  of  con- 
descension, not  by  a  necessity  of  nature ;  and  it  greatly 
concerns  them  that  they  should  understand  this ;  and  at 
no  time  Jose  sight  of  the  fact  that  here  is  a  delivered 
and  a  Deliverer,  a  ransomed  and  a  Ransomer,  how- 
ever to  the  natural  eye  there  may  seem  two  who  are 
ransomed  alike.  And,  as  on  other  occasions,  at  his  pre- 
sentation in  the  temple  (Luke  ii.  22-24),  and  again  at  his 
baptism  (Matt.  iii.  16,  17),  there  was  something  more 
than  common  which  should  hinder  a  misunderstanding  of 
that  Avhicli  was  done  ;  at  the  presentation,  in  Simeon's 
song  and  Anna's  thanksgiving ;  at  the  baptism,  first  in 
John's  reluctance  to  baptize  Him,  and  then  in  the  opened 
heaven  and  the  voice  from  thence;  —  so  also  is  there  here 
a  protest  of  Christ's  immunity  from  the  present  payment, 
first  in  his  ov/n  declaration,  'Then  are  the  children  free  ; ' 
and  next  in  the  novel  method  by  which  He  supplies  the 
necessity  which  Peter  has  so  thoughtlessly  created  for 
Him.i 

It  is  remarkable,  and  is  a  solitary  instance  of  the  kind, 
that  the  issue  of  this  bidding  is  not  told  us  :  but  we  are, 
of  course,  meant  to  understand  that  Peter  went  to  the 
neighbouring  lake,  cast  in  his  hook,  and  in  the  mouth  of 
the  first  fish  that  rose  to  it,  found,  according  to  his  Lord's 
word,  the  money  that  was  needed.  As  little  here  as  at 
Luke  V.  4,  6,  did  the  miraculous  in  the  miracle  consist  in 
a  mere  foreknowledge  on  the  Lord's  part  that  this  first 

*  Benpel:  In  medio  actu  submissionis  cmicat  majestas.  And  Clarius: 
Reddit  ergo  ceiisura,  sed  ex  ore  piseis  acceptum.  ut  agnoscatur  mojestas. 
So  too  Oiigen  (in  loc.)  recognizes  a  saving  of  the  Lord's  dignity  in  the 
mode  of  tlie  payment,  a  saving,  of  course,  not  for  his  own  sake,  but  for 
ours.  In  other  cases  where  misapprehension  was  possible,  we  find  a  like 
care  for  this  (John  xi.  41,  42). 


THE  FISH'S  MOUTIL  407 

fish  should  bea.r  the  coin  in  its  mouth  :  He  did  not  merely 
foreknow  J  but  by  the  mysterious  potency  of  his  will  which 
ran  throui^h  all  nature,  drew  such  a  fish  to  that  spot  at 
that  moment,  and  ordained  that  it  should  swallow  the 
hook.  We  see  here  as  at  Jonah  i.  17  ('the  Lord  had 
■prepared  a  great  fish  to  swallow  up  Jonah'),  that  in  the 
lower  spheres  of  creaturely  life  there  is  unconscious 
obedience  to  his  will ;  that  these  also  are  not  out  of  God, 
but  move  in  Him,  and  without  knowing  are  the  ministers 
of  his  will  (i  Kin.  xiii.  24  ;  xvii.  6  ;  xx.  36  ;  Amos  ix.  3). 
All  attempts  to  exhaust  this  miracle  of  its  miraculous 
element,  to  make  the  Evangelist  tell,  and  intend  to  tell,  an 
ordinary  transaction, — as  that  of  the  rationalist  Paulus, 
who  will  have  it  that  the  Lord  bade  Peter  go  and  catch  as 
many  fish  as  would  sell  for  the  required  sum,  and  main- 
tains that  this  actually  lies  in  the  words,' — are  hopelessly 

^  His  honesty  and  his  Greek  keep  admirable  company,  Ilpwrov  ixGvf 
lie  takes  collectively,  primum  quemque  piscem,  ar'  it^uQ  rh  oro/.a  avToi< 
solvens  eum  ab  hamo,  tliiJi'iaiKj  ara^^ipa  vendendo  piscem  statera.tibi  com- 
parabis.  This  is  not  even  new;  for  see  Kocher,  Analectn,  in  loc,  1766  : 
Piscem  capies  qiiem  pro  statere  vendere  poteris.  In  a  later  work,  Paulus 
amends  his  plea,  and  avoiia^  to  nn'ma  is  no  longer,  opening  the  fish's 
mouth  to  take  out  the  hook,  but,  opening  thine  own  mouth,  i.e.  crying 
the  fish  for  sale,  airuv  eufjij-^Hi;  (rr'iTi'ipri,  thou  wilt  there  earn  a  stater. 
Another  of  the  same  school  (see  Kuinnel,  in  loc.)  will  have  the  whole 
speech  a  playful  irony  on  the  Lord's  part,  who  would  show  Peter  the  im- 
possible payment  to  which  he  has  pledged  Ilim,  when  money  they  had 
none  in  hand ;  as  though  He  had  said,  '  The  next  thing  which  you  had 
better  do  is  to  go  and  catch  us  a  fish,  and  find  in  its  mouth  the  coin  which 
shall  pay  this  tax  for  which  you  have  engaged  us.'  It  was  reserved  for 
the  mythic  school  of  interpreters  to  find  other  difficulties  here,  besides 
the  general  one  of  there  being  a  miracle  at  all.  '  llow,'  exclaims  Strauss 
(Leben  Jtsif,  vol.  ii.  p.  195), '  could  the  fish  retain  the  stater  in  its  mouth  ? 
the  coin  must  needs  have  dropt  out  while  it  was  opening  its  jaws  to 
swallow  t!ie  hook;  and,  moreover,  it  is  not  in  the  viouths,  but  in  the 
bellies,  of  fishes  that  precious  things  are  fnind.'  Did  Juvencus,  by  tlie 
way.  anticipate  and  seek  to  evade  this  difliculty,  when,  turning  the  Gos- 
pels into  hexameters,  he  wrote  :  IIujus  pandautur  scissi pcnetmlia  venirix? 
Such  is  the  objection  against  which  this  history  is  too  weak  to  stand  ! 
It  can  only  be  matched  with  the  objection  which  another  makes  to  the 
historic  truth  of  Daniel  in  the  lions'  den  ;  namely,  that  if  a  stone  was 
laid  at  the  mouth  of  the  den  (Dan.  vi.  17),  the  lions  must  needs  have 
been  suffocated, — so  that  nothing  will  satisfy  him  but  that  the  mouth  of 
the  den  must  have  been  hermetically  sealed! 


4-o8  THE  STATER  IN 

absurd.  Yet,  on  the  otlier  hand,  they  multiply  miracles 
without  a  warrant  who  assume  that  the  stater  was  created 
for  the  occasion ; »  nay  more,  they  step  altogether  out  of 
the  proper  sphere  of  miracle  into  that  of  absolute  creation  ; 
for  in  the  miracle,  as  distinguished  from  the  act  of  pm-e 
creation,  there  is  always  a  nature-basis  to  which  the 
divine  power  which  works  the  wonder  more  or  less  closely 
links  itself.  That  divine  power  which  dwelt  in  Christ, 
restored,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sick,  the  halt,  the  blind ;  it 
multiplied,  as  the  bread  in  the  wilderness ;  it  changed  into 
a  nobler  substance,  as  the  water  at  Cana ;  it  quickened 
and  revived,  as  Lazarus  and  the  daughter  of  Jairus ;  it 
brought  together,  as  here,  by  wonderful  coincidences,  the 
already  existing;  but,  as  far  as  our  records  reach,  it 
formed  no  new  limbs ;  it  made  no  bread,  no  wine,  out  of 
nothing ;  it  created  no  new  men :  never  passed  over  on 
any  one  occasion  into  the  region  of  absolute  creation.' 

The  allegorical  interpretations,  or  rather  uses,  of  this 
miracle,  for  they  are  seldom  intended  for  more,  have  not 
much  to  attract ;  neither  that  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,' 
that  each  skilful  *  fisher  of  men '  will,  like  Peter,  remove 
the  coin  of  pride  and  avarice  and  luxury,  from  the  mouth 
of  them  whom  he  has  drawn  up  by  the  hook  of  the  Gospel 
from  the  waste  waters  of  the  world ;  nor  yet  that  which 
St.  Ambrose   brings   forward,  wherein   the   stater  plays 

^  So  does  Seb.  Sclimidt  (Fascic.  Diss.  p.  796).  Chn'sostom  (Horn. 
Ixxxvii.  in  Juh.)  accounts  in  like  manner  for  the  fish  which  the  disciples 
find  ready  upon  the  shore  (John  xxi.  9) ;  and  some  will  have  that  Chrlsi 
not  merely  gave  sight  to,  but  made  organs  of  vision  for,  the  man  who 
was  born  blind  (John  ix.). 

*  The  accounts  are  numerous  of  precious  things  found  in  the  bellies  of 
fishes.  The  story  of  Polycrates'  ring  is  well  known  (Herodotus,  iii.  42); 
and  in  Jewish  legend  Solomon,  having  lost  his  ring  of  power,  recovers 
it  in  the  same  unexpected  way  (Eisenmenger,  Entdeckt.  Judenth.  vol.  i. 
p.  360).  Augustine  {Be  Civ.  Dei,  xxii.  8)  records  a  like  incident  in  his 
own  day,  in  which  he  sees  a  providential  dealing  of  God,  answering  the 
prayer,  and  supplying  the  need,  of  one  of  his  servants. 

*  Padag.  ii.  vol.  i.  p.  17s,  Potters  ed.j  of.  Origen,  Comm.  in  Matt,  iot 
the  same. 


THE  F I  Sirs  MOUTH.  409 

altogether  a  different,  indeed  an  opposite,  part ;  *  nor  has 
Augustine's  ^  more  to  draw  forth  our  assent.  It  is  super- 
fluous to  press  further  a  miracle  already  so  rich  in  teaching 
as  this  approves  itself  to  be. 

*  Ilexa'em.  v.  6 :  Ideo  misit  retia,  et  complexus  est  Stephanuni,  qui  de 
Evangelio  primii?  ascendit  \tov  ava^avrn  Trpi'jm']  h'^bens  in  ore  suo  sta- 
terera  justitise.  Uude  coufessione  constanti  ciamavit,  dicens :  Ecce  video 
crelos  apertos,  et  Filium  horainis  stantem  ad  dexteram  Dei.  So  Hilary, 
Coimn.  in  Matt,  in  loc. 

*  Enarr.  in  Ps.  cxxxvii.  8 :  Primum  surgentem  de  mari,  primogenitum 
ft  raortuis ;  for  by  Him,  he  says,  with  the  error  which  raas  tlii'ougb  his 
whole  intei*pretation,  ab  exactione  hiijus  seculi  liberamur. 


29-    THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS. 
John  xi.  1-54. 

OT.  JOHISr  expressly  states  towards  the  close  of  Lis 
^  Gospel  that  there  were  many  signs  wrought  by  the 
Lord  in  the  presence  of  his  disciples  which  were  not 
written  in  his  book,  but  that  enough  were  recorded  to 
make  evident  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God 
(xx.  30,  31 ;  xxi.  35).  He  has  indeed  shown  a  remarkable 
restraint,  even  a  parsimony,  in  the  commemoration  of 
these.  He  has  in  no  instance  more  than  one  miracle  of 
the  same  kind  ;  thus  one  healing  of  the  lame  (v.  9),  one 
opening  of  blind  eyes  (ix.  7),  one  raising  from  the  dead, 
namely  this  of  Lazarus ;  and,  as  wrought  by  the  Lord  in 
the  days  of  his  flesh,  only  seven  miracles  in  all — these 
seven  again  dividing  themselves  into  two  groups,  of  four 
and  of  three ;  four  ^vrought  in  Galilee,  and  three  in 
Judsea.  When  we  call  to  mind  the  frequent  grouping  by 
seven  both  in  his  Gospel  and  in  the  Apocalypse,  we  can 
hardly  account  this  number  accidental.  We  have  now 
reached  the  last  of  this  seven ;  it  is  not  for  nothing  that  it 
should  thus  be  the  last,  and  so  occupy  the  place  which  it 
does  just  at  the  close  of  Christ's  ministry  on  earth.  He 
who  was  Himself  so  soon  to  taste  of  death  will  show 
Himself  by  this  infallible  proof  the  Lord  of  life  and 
conqueror  of  death ;  who,  redeeming  the  soul  of  another 
from  the  grave,  would  assuredly  not  lack  the  power  to 
redeem  his  own  from  the  same. 

It   must  always  remain  a  mystery  why  this  miracle, 
transcending  as  it  does  all  other  miracles  which  the  Lord 


THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS.  All 

wronglit,  so  memorable  in  itself,  drawing  after  it  the 
consequences  wliich  it  did  (Jolm  xi.  33),  should  have  been 
past  over  by  the  three  earlier  Evangelists,  and  left  for  the 
latest  to  record.  The  utmost  that  can  be  hoped  is  to 
suggest  some  probable  explanation.'  Thus,  some  have 
urged,  as  Grotius  and  Olshausen,  that  the  earlier  Evan- 
gelists, writing  in  Palestine,  and  while  Lazarus  or  some  of 
his  family  yet  survived,  would  not  willingly  draw  atten- 
tion, and,  it  might  be,  persecution,  upon  them  (see  John 
xii.  10)  ;  while  St.  John,  who  wrote  at  a  much  later  date, 
and  not  in  Palestine,  but  in  Asia  Minor,  had  no  such 
motive  for  keeping  this  miracle  out  of  sight.  The  omission 
on  their  part,  and  the  mention  upon  his,  will  then  corre- 
spond to  a  like  omission  and  mention  of  the  name  of  the 
disciple  who  smote  off  the  ear  of  the  High  Priest's  servant, 
St.  John  alone  recording  that  it  was  Peter  who  struck  the 
blow  (xviii.  10).  But  how  unsatisfying  an  explanation  is 
this  !  It  would  account  at  the  utmost  for  the  silence  of 
St.  Matthew  ;  not  for  St.  Mark's,  whose  Gospel  was 
probably  written  at  Pome  ;  for  St.  Luke's  as  little,  who 
wrote  for  his  friend  Theophilus,  whom  many  intimations 
make  us  conclude  to  have  lived  in  Italy.  And  the  danger 
itself,  how  hard  it  is  to  imagine  that  this  should  actually 
have  existed  !  There  may  have  been,  we  know  there  was, 
such  at  the  first  moment ;  but  how  much  must  have 
altered  since,  what  new  objects  of  hostility  arisen  :  not  to 
say  that  if  there  tvas  danger,  and  such  as  a  mention  of  this 
miracle  wrought  on  him  would  enhance,  yet  Lazarus  would 
as  little  himself  have  shrunk,  as  those  who  loved  him 

'  Hengstenberg  reminds  us  of  similar  phenomena  in  the  relation  be- 
tween the  Boolcs  of  Kings  and  of  Chronicles.  The  former,  not  to  speak 
of  other  omissions,  passes  over  altogether  the  great  confederacy  of  the 
desert  tribes  in  the  times  of  King  .Jehoshaphat,  with  the  deliverance  which 
was  divinely  wrought  for  Judah  ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  Chronicles  that 
any  record  of  these  events  is  to  be  found  ;  and  this,  although  nothing  less 
than  the  existence  of  the  nation  was  then  at  stake  ;  and  l*s.  xlvii.,  xlviii., 
Ixxxiii.  all  testify  hnw  prof  )und  the  impression  on  the  mind  of  the  people 
which  the  danger,  and  the  deliverance  from  the  danger,  had  wrought. 

27 


412  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

would  have  wished  to  withdraw  him,  from  honourable 
peril,  incurred  for  Christ's  sake.  Neither  he  nor  they 
could  have  desired  that  a  work  revealing  so  much  of  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  should  remain  untold,  lest  persecution 
or  danger  might  from  the  telling  accrue  to  him,  or  to 
some  dear  to  him.  Others,  as  Neander,  feeling  the  in- 
sufficiency of  this  explanation,  have  observed  how  the 
three  earlier  Evangelists  report  few  miracles  save  those 
which  were  wrought  in  Galilee,  leaving  those  of  Jerusalem 
and  its  neighbourhood  nearly  untouched ;  and  that  so  they 
have  omitted  this.^  But  this  which  is  perfectly  true,  is  no 
explanation,  only  a  re-stating  in  other  words  of  the  fact 
which  needs  explanation ;  and  the  question  still  remains, 
Why  they  should  have  done  so  ?  and  to  this  it  is  difficult 
to  find  now  the  satisfactory  answer.  That  the  earlier 
Evangelists  did  not  know  of  this  wondrous  work  cannot 
for  an  instant  be  admitted.  One  of  them,  St.  Matthew, 
was  an  eye-witness  of  it,  no  less  than  St.  John ;  two  of 
them  record  the  feast  in  Simon's  house  which  grew  im- 
mediately from  it  (Matt.  xxvi.  6 ;  Mark  xiv.  3) ;  and  all  of 
them  the  enthusiastic  reception  of  the  Lord  as  He  entered 
Jerusalem  on  the  day  of  Palms,  which  reception  only  this 
miracle  adequately  accounts  for. 

*  Now  a  certain  man  was  sicJc,  named  Lazarus,  of  BetJmny,- 
the  town  of  Mary  and  her  sister  Martha.'  This  '  Now,'  or 
'  But,'  which  would  be  preferable,  connects  with  what  just 

'  Lehen  Jcsu,  p.  357. 

'  Stanley  (^Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  186):  'BetJiatnj,  a  wild  mountain 
hamlet,  screened  by  an  intervening  ridge  from  the  view  of  the  top  of 
Olivet,  perched  on  its  broken  plateau  of  rock,  the  last  collection  of  human 
habitations  before  the  desert  hills  which  reach  to  Jericho, — this  is  the 
modern  village  of  El-Lazarieh,  which  derives  its  name  from  its  clustering 
round  the  traditional  site  of  the  one  house  and  grave  which  give  it  an 
undying  interest.  High  in  the  distance  are  the  Perean  mountains;  the 
foreground  is  the  deep  descent  to  the  Jordan  valley.  On  the  further  side 
of  that  dark  abyss  Martha  and  Mary  knew  that  Christ  was  abiding  when 
they  sent  their  messengers  ;  up  that  long  ascent  they  had  often  watched 
his  approach  ;  up  that  long  ascent  He  came  when,  outside  the  village, 
Martha  and  Mary  met  Him,  and  the  Jews  stood  round  weeping,' 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  4' 3 

had  gone  before,  and  indicates  liow  it  came  to  pass  that 
the  safer  and  more  retired  life  of  the  Lord  (see  x.  39-42) 
was  brought  to  a  close,  and  He  once  more  drawn  into  the 
perilous  neighbourhood  of  the  city  which  was  the  head- 
quarters of  his  bitterest  foes.  Lazarus,  who  appears  now 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Evangelical  history,  and  the 
manner  of  whose  introduction  marks  that  he  was  one 
hitherto  unknown  to  St.  John's  readers,  is  described  by 
him  as  'from  {d-rro)  Bethany,  of  (e«)  the  town  of  Mary  and 
Martha.^  Some  have  urged  that  these  two  prepositions 
denote  different  facts,  the  first  the  place  of  his  present 
residence,  namely  Bethany,  the  second  the  town  or  village 
from  which  he  originally  came.^  But  this  is  assuredly  a 
mistake.  The  later  clause  is  added  not  as  stating  a  new 
fact,  but  to  prevent  any  misapprehension  in  one  mentioned 
just  before,  to  make  plain,  which  Bethany  was  intended. 
There  were  two  villages  of  this  name.  In  addition  to  this 
Bethany,  another  *  beyond  Jordan ; '  for  *  Bethany,'  not 
'  Bethabara,'  is  the  proper  reading  of  John  i.  28.  It  was 
so  read,  Origen  assures  us,  in  nearly  all  copies  of  his  day ; 
and  '  Bethany,'  having  the  authority  of  the  best  MSS.  and 
of  most  of  the  elder  Versions,  has  now  obtained  a  place  in 
all  our  best  critical  editions.  Lazarus  might  be,  and  was, 
unknown  to  St.  John's  readers,  but  with  Mary  and  Martha 
they  were  familiar.  The  Evangelist  has  not  himself  named 
them  yet ;  but  here  as  everywhere  he  assumes  an  acquaint- 
ance on  the  part  of  his  readers  with  the  preceding  Gospels, 
and  in  St.  Luke's,  as  all  are  aAvare,  the  two  sisters,  though 
not  the  brother,  appear  (x.  38-42).     When  therefore  he 

^  Greswell,  for  example,  in  an  ingenious  essay,  On  tJie  Village  of  Mary 
and  Martha  {Dissei-t.  vol.  ii.  p.  545).  But  a  change  of  the  preposition  with 
no  change  of  the  meaning,  such  as  we  have  here,  is  sufficiently  common 
in  Greek  ;  see  Sophocles,  Eledra,  700,  seq. ;  and  Kiihner,  Greek  Gram?n. 
vol.  ii.  p.  319;  see  moreover  John  i.  44,  where  exactly  the  same  use  of 
I'rno  and  tK  occurs,  and  which  is  quite  decisive  in  respect  of  their  intention 
here.  It  may,  indeed,  be  a  question  whether  the  comma  after  Lazarus 
should  not  he  removed,  and  Lazarus  of  Bethany  (=  Lazarus  Bethaniensis) 
be  read  in  one  breath. 


414  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

designates  Bethany  as  '  the  town  of  Mary  and  Martha,^  he 
at  once  makes  evident  which  Bethany  he  meant. 

Let  me  say  by  the  way  that  this  reference  leaves  little 
doubt  npon  my  mind  that  the  '  certain  village,'  ^  in  which 
the  sisters  at  an  earlier  day  received  the  Lord,  was  it- 
self Bethany  (Luke  x.  38-42).  It  is  unlikely,  though  of 
course  not  impossible,  that  they  should  in  the  brief  interval 
have  changed  the  place  of  their  habitation  ;  and  the  only 
plausible  argument  against  the  identifying  of  that  village 
with  Bethany,  namely  that  the  little  history  would  be  then 
narrated  out  of  its  due  order  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
Galilean  ministry  of  the  Lord,  is  not  of  much  weight. 
In  the  narrating  of  events,  the  Evangelists  have  in  several 
instances  departed  from  the  law  of  mere  historic  succession, 
marshalling  and  grouping  them  according  to  a  higher 
spiritual  laAV.  St.  Luke  had  just  recorded  the  parable  of 
the  Good  Samaritan,  with  that  *  Go  and  do  thou  likewise,' 
which  constitutes  the  moral  of  the  whole.  But  this  active 
doing,  he  will  teach  us  next,  must  never  be  dissociated 
from  the  inner  rest  of  the  spirit,  nor  degenerate  into  a 
mere  bustling  outward  activity;  and  Martha  aa  she  there 
appears,  and  as  she  is  there  rebuked,  is  a  needful  w^arning 
against  a  misapplication  of  that  '  Go  and  do,'  addressed  to 
the  Scribe.  One  Scripture  is  set  over  against  and  balances 
the  other.  Another  proof  that  St.  John  assumes  the 
acquaintance  of  his  readers  with  the  preceding  Gospel,  we 
may  trace  in  his  putting,  on  this  his  first  mention  of  the 
sisters,  Mary  before  Martlia.  There  are  many  reasons  for 
supposing  that  Maiy  was  the  younger  ;  external  reasons, 
as  that  the  house  was  not  hers  but  Martha's,  that  Martha 
resents  being  deprived  of  the  power  to  order  her  sister 
about ;  and  internal  probabilities  no  less,  the  order  of 
grace  continually  going  counter  to  the  order  of  nature,  God 
reversing  the  prerogatives  of  the  flesh  (i  Cor.  i.  26-29) ; 

'  Km^t]  there  as  here,  tliougli  translated  there  'village,'  and  here 
'  town.' 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  415 

as  in  Isaac,  Jacob,  Joseph,  and  David  (i  Sam.  xvi.  11), 
was  etninentlj  sliown ;  and  not  improbably  in  Mary.  Bufc 
the  Evangelist  having  claimed  for  her  this  once  her  place 
of  Sjpiritual  prerogative,  as  the  elder  in  the  spiritual  birth, 
she  falls  back  in  his  narrative  into  her  natural  as  distin- 
guished from  her  spiritual  place,  and  is  henceforward 
named  not  before,  but  after  her  sister  (ver.  5,  19). 

What  the  exact  constitution  of  the  household  may  have 
been,  it  is  impossible  to  say,  the  Gospels  being  singularly 
frugal  in  circumstantial  notices  concerning  the  persons 
they  introduce,  only  relating  so  much  as  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  make  the  history  intelligible.  Perhaps  Martha 
was  an  early  widow,  with  whom  Mary  and  a  younger 
brother,  Lazarus,  dwelt ;  Hengstenberg,  rejecting  this  sup- 
position, will  have  her  to  have  been  the  wife  of  Simon — at 
whose  house  (see  Matt.  xxvi.  6)  the  feast  recorded  in  the 
next  chapter  was  made — and  has  a  most  elaborate  discus- 
sion for  the  purpose  of  proving  this,  and  that  the  anoint- 
ing of  our  Lord  at  a  meal  took  place  only  once ;  that  this 
Simon,  therefore,  is  identical  with  Simon  the  Pharisee 
(Luke  vii.  36-50),  and  Mary  that  sat  at  Jesus'  feet  and 
heard  his  word  with  the  '  woman  that  was  a  sinner.'  One 
had  hoped  that  the  identification  of  these  two  had  been 
definitively  set  aside  ;  but  late  experience  has  shown  that 
there  is  no  question  from  the  smallest  to  the  greatest 
which  may  not  be  opened  anew.  It  would  lead  too  far 
astray  from  the  purpose  of  this  volume  to  follow  his  argu- 
ments ;  I  must  content  myself  with  saying  that,  ingenious 
as  they  must  be  owned,  they  have  not  in  the  least  con- 
vinced me ;  and  so  pass  on  to  the  miracle  before  us.  '  It 
was  that  Mary,'  the  Evangelist  proceeds  to  say,  *  which 
anointed  the  Lord  with  ointment  and  wiped  his  feet  with  her 
hair,  whose  brother  Lazarus  was  sicJc.'  He  will  distinguish 
her  by  that  notable  deed  of  hers  from  all  the  other  Maries 
of  the  Evangelical  history  ;  even  as  vrith  his  commemora- 
tion of  it  the  fulfilment  of  Matt.  xxvi.  13  begins,     ^.s  he 


fi6  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

has  not  himself  as  yet  recorded  that  anointing,  however  ho 
may  do  so  by  and  by  and  when  the  fit  time  shall  arrive 
(xii.  2-8),  here  too  he  assumes  a  familiarity  on  the  part  of 
his  readers  with  those  two  earlier  Gospels  in  which  it  is 
related  at  length  (Matt.  xxvi.  6  ;  Mark  xiv.  3). 

'  Therefore  his  sisters  sent  unto  Him,  saying,  Lord,  behold, 
he  whom  Thoii  lovest  is  sicJc.'  We  know  not  how  often 
the  Lord  had  been  an  inmate  of  that  house  at  Bethany. 
One  memorable  occasion,  with  its  word  of  warning  love  to 
one  of  its  inmates,  we  know  of  before  this  time  (Luke 
X.  41,  42)  ;  and  when  later  than  this,  during  the  Great 
Week,  He  lodged  in  Bethany  (Matt.  xxi.  17  ;  Mark  xi.  it, 
19),  returning  thither  for  the  night  after  the  task  of  the  day 
in  the  unfriendly  city  was  over,  and  again  repairing  with  the 
early  morning  to  the  city,  He  can  scarcely  have  honoured 
any  other  roof  than  this  with  his  presence.  Now,  there- 
fore, when  there  is  soitow  there,  they  turn  in  their  need 
to  Him,  whom  they  may  have  themselves  already  proved 
an  effectual  helper  in  the  day  of  trouble,  who  at  any  rate 
has  shown  Himself  such  in  the  extremest  necessities  of 
others.  He  is  at  a  distance,  beyond  Jordan  ;  having  with- 
drawn thither  from  the  malice  of  his  adversaries  (John.  x. 
39,  40 ;  cf.  i.  28) ;  but  the  place  of  his  retirement  is 
known  to  the  friendly  family,  and  their  messenger  finds  his 
way  to  Him  with  the  tidings  of  danger  and  distress. 
Yery  beautiful  is  it  to  observe  their  confidence  in  Him ; 
they  do  not  urge  Him  to  come,  they  only  state  their  need. 
This,  they  take  for  granted,  will  be  sufficient ;  for  He  does 
not  love  and  forsake  them  whom  He  loves.'  It  is  but  a 
day's  journey  from  the  one  Bethany  to  the  other ;  they 
may  securely  count  that  help  will  not  tarry  long. 

'  When  Jesus  heard  that.  He  said,  This  sichiess  is  not 
unto  death,^  hut  for  the  glory  of  God,  that  the  Son  of  God 

^  Augustine  (In  Uc.  Joh.  tract,  xl.):  Non  dixerunt,  Yeni.  Amanti 
enim  tautummodo  iiuutiaudum  fuit.  .  ,  ,  SulTlcit  ut  noveris;  non  enim 
am  as  et  de.^eris. 

'^  I'ii.or  hiit>(ni_r':=  Jaydniftnc,  I  John  V.  i6;  cf.  I  Kin.  xvii.  17;  2  Kin. 
XX.  I  (LXX),  wliore  of  Ilezelciah  it  is  said,  ))i.>pwnTiini\'  ilg  fuiaror. 


THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS.  ^ly 

migJit  he  glorified  thereby.^  This  saying,  addressed  to  tlie 
messenger,  is  for  him  to  carry  back  to  them  who  sent  him, 
is  indeed  spoken  to  them  (see  ver.  40,  where  Christ  with 
his,  '•Said  I  not  unto  thee,''  refers  Martha  to  these  very 
words).  They  are  purposely  enigmatical,  and  must  greatly 
have  tried  the  faith  of  the  sisters.  By  the  time  that  the 
messenger  brought  them  back,  Lazarus  was  already  dead. 
Sorely  therefore  must  this  confident  assurance  of  a  hap- 
pier issue  have  perplexed  them.  Had  their  divine  Friend 
deceived  them  ?  or  had  He  been  Himself  deceived  ?  Why 
had  He  not  shut  out  all  room  for  mischance  by  Himself 
coming ;  or,  if  aught  had  hindered  this,  by  speaking  that 
word  which,  far  oflf  as  near,  was  effectual  to  heal,  which 
He  had  spoken  for  others,  for  those  that  were  wellnigh 
strangers  to  Him,  and  had  saved  them?  (Matt.  viii.  13  ; 
John  iv.  50.)  But,  as  with  so  many  other  of  the  divine 
promises,  which  seem  to  iis  for  the  moment  to  have  utterly 
failed,  and  this  because  we  so  little  dream  of  the  resources 
of  the  Divine  love,  and  are  ever  putting  human  limitations 
on  them,  so  was  it  with  this  word, — a  perplexing  riddle, 
till  the  event  made  it  plain.  Even  now,  in  the  eyes  of 
Him  who  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning,  that  sickness 
was  *  not  unto  death ; '  and  this  they  too  should  acknow- 
ledge, when  through  the  grave  and  gate  of  death  their 
brother  had  entered  on  a  higher  life  than  any  which 
hitherto  he  had  known.  For  this  we  may  confidently 
assume,  that  it  iva<i  a  higher  life  to  which  Lazarus  was 
recalled.  That  sickness  of  his  was  ^for  the  glory  of  God ;  ' 
in  which  '  glory '  was  included  the  perfecting  of  his  own 
spiritual  being,  as  we  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  perfected 
through  this  wondrous  crisis  of  his  life.  But  all  this, 
which  was  so  much  for  him,  was  also  a  signal  moment  in 
the  gradual  revelation  of  the  glory  of  Christ  to  the  world. 
The  Son  of  God  was  first  glorified  in  Lazarus,  and  then  on 
and  through  him  to  the  world ;  compare  the  exact  parallel, 
John  ix.  2,  3. 


^l8  TEE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

Some  connect  the  words  next  ensuing, '  J^ow  Jesus  loved ' 
Ifartha,  and  her  sister^  and  Lazarus,''  with  what  goes  be- 
fore, lind  in  them  an  explanation  of  the  message,  and  of  the 
confidence  wliich  the  sisters  entertain  in  the  Lord's  help : 
some  with  the  verse  which  follows,  and  understand  St. 
John  to  be  bringing  into  strongest  contrast  the  Lord's  love 
to  the  distressed  family  at  Bethany,  and  his  tarrying  not- 
withstanding for  two  days  where  He  was,  even  after  their 
cry  of  distress  had  reached  Him  ;  to  be  suggesting  to  the 
thouo^htful  reader  all  that  is  involved  in  a  love  which 
waited  so  long,  before  it  stepped  in  to  save.  But  this  verse 
is  better  connected  not  with  one,  but  with  two  which  follow. 
St.  John  would  say :  Jesus  loved  Martha  and  the  others ; 
'  ivhen  He  liacl  heard  therefore  that  Lazarus  ivas  sick,  He 
abode  two  days  luhere  He  was ; '  but  '  then  after  that  saith 
He  to  his  disciples,  Let  us  go  into  Judcea  again,'  as  one  who 
could  not  endure  to  remain  longer  away  from  those  so 
loved,  and  so  urgently  needing  his  presence.^  To  conceive 
any  other  reason  for  his  tarrying  where  He  was  during 
those  two  days,  than  that  He  might  have  scope  for  that 
great  miracle,  as,  for  example,  that  He  had  in  hand  some 
signal  work  for  the  kingdom  of  God  where  He  was,  such 
as  would  not  endure  interruption,  which  therefore  He 
could  not  quit  for  the  most  urgent  calls  of  private  friend- 
ship, is  extremely  unnatural  (see  x.  41,  42).  Had  it  been 
^for  the  glory  of  God,'  He  who  could  have  sent  his  word 
and  healed  (Matt.  viii.  13;  xv.  28;  John  iv.  50),  would 
not  have  failed  so  to  do.     This  tanying  was  rather  a  part 

*  'Uyuirahere;  but  (j  i  X 1 7  c,  ver.  3.  This  last  word  might  well  be  used 
in  regard  of  Christ's  love  to  the  brother ;  but  it  would  have  been  con- 
trary to  the  fine  decorum  of  the  language  of  Scripture  to  use  it  now  that 
the  sisters  are  included  in  his  love.  Not  till  after  the  Ascension  did  the 
restraints  which  limited  the  relations  even  of  the  Son  of  man  to  women 
altogether  fall  away.  He  checked  Mary  Magdalene,  when  she  would 
have  anticipated  the  time  (John  xx.  17). 

'  Maldonatus :  Credo  rationem  tacite  reddere  [Evangelistam]  cur 
etsi  non  statini  ierit,  postea  tamen  ierit  suo  tempore,  quasi  dicat,  non  po- 
tuisse  illorum,  quos  tantopere  diligebat,  oblivisci,  fixum  in  ejus  aiiimo 
mansisse  nuntium  aeerritudinis  Lazari. 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  419 

of  the  severe  yet  gracious  discipline  ot  divine  love.  Tiie 
need  must  attain  to  the  highest,  before  He  interi'eres.  It 
is  often  thus.  He  intervenes  with  mighty  help,  but  not 
till  every  other  help,  not  until,  to  the  weak  faith  of  man, 
even  his  own  promise,  has  seemed  utterly  to  have  failed. 

But  now,  when  all  things  are  ready  for  Him,  '  saith  He 
to  h'.i  disciples,  Let  us  go  into  Judcea  again.'  This  mention 
of  Judsea  brings  out  the  danger  more  strongly  than 
Bethany  of  itself  would  have  done.  The  wondering  and 
trembling  disciples  remonstrate ;  *  Master,  the  Jeivs  of  late 
sought  to  stone  Thee'  (see  x.  31,  39),  'and  goest  Thou  thither 
again  ? '  The  necessity  of  hiding  from  their  malice  had 
brought  Him  to  those  safer  haunts  beyond  Jordan,  and 
will  He  now  affront  that  danger  anew  ?  hi  these  remon- 
strances of  theirs  there  spake  out  a  true  love  to  their 
Master;  but  mingled  with  this  love  apprehensions  for 
their  own  safety,  as  is  presently  made  plain  by  the  words 
of  Thomas  (ver.  16),  who  takes  it  for  granted  that  to 
return  with  Him  is  to  die  with  Him.  To  keep  this  in 
mind,  will  help  us  to  understand  the  answer  of  the  Lord : 
'  Are  there  not  twelve  hours  in  the  day  ?  '  or,  rather, '  Are  not 
the  hours  of  the  day  twelve  ? '  And  then  He  proceeds  :  *  If 
any  7nan  ivalJc  in  the  day,  he  stumhleth  not,  because  he  seeth 
the  light  of  this  world.'  This  saymg  of  his  we  may  j)ara- 
phrase  thus :  *  Is  there  not  a  time,  which  is  not  cut  short 
or  abridged  by  premature  darkness,  but  consists  of  twelve 
full  hours,  ^  during  any  part  of  which  a  man  may  w^alk  and 
work  without  stumbling, — for  such  stumbling  is  quite  ex- 
ceptional then  (Isai.  lix.  10;  Hos.  iv.  5), — being  enlightened 

^  Maldonatus:  Certum  esse  atque  st.itum  spatium  diai,  (juocl  minin  non 
possit;  duodecim  enim  constare  lioris  ;  intra  id  spatiuin  si  quis  ambulat, 
sine  periculo  ambulare.  Calvin  :  Vocatio  Dei  instar  lucis  diurnte  est, 
qua3  DOS  errare  vel  iuipingere  non  patitur.  Quisquis  ergo  Dei  verbo  ob- 
temperat,  nee  quidquam  aggreditur  nisi  ejus  jussu,  ilium  quoque  habere 
c.ielo  duceui  et  directorem,  et  hac  fiducia  secure  et  intrepide  viam  arripere 
potest.  Of.  Ps.  xc.  II.  Grotius:  Quanlo  ergo  raagis  tuto  ambulo,  qui 
prpelucentem  inihi  habeo  luceui  supracaelestem,  ac  divinam  coguitionem 
Paterui  propositi. 


f20  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZAHUS. 

by  tlie  light  of  this  world  (Gen.  i.  15,  16),  by  the  natural 
Eun  in  the  heavens  ?  Such  an  unconcluded  day  there  is 
now  for  Me,  a  day  during  any  part  of  which  I  can  safely 
accomplish  the  work  given  Me  by  my  Father,  whose  light 
I,  in  like  manner,  behold.*  So  long  as  the  day,  the  time 
appointed  by  my  Father  for  my  earthly  walk,  endures,  so 
long  as  there  is  any  work  for  Me  yet  to  accomplish,  I  am 
safe,  and  you  are  safe  in  my  company.'  Compare  similar 
words  spoken  under  similar  circumstances  of  danger, 
John  ix.  4.  And  then,  leaving  all  allusion  to  Himself, 
and  contemplating  his  disciples  alone.  He  links  another 
thought  to  this,  and  warns  them  that  they  never  walk 
otherwise  than  as  seeing  Him  who  is  the  Light  of  men, — 
that  they  undertake  no  task,  and  affront  no  danger,  unless 
looking  to  Him,  who  can  alone  make  their  darkness  to  be 
light;  'hut  if  a  man  walk  in  the  night,  he  stumbleth,  because 
there  is  no  light  in  him.'  In  these  last  words  there  is  a 
forsaking  of  the  figure,  which  would  have  required  some- 
thing of  this  kind,  '  because  there  is  no  light  above  him  ; ' 
but  in  the  spiritual  world  it  is  one  and  the  same  thing  not 
to  see  the  light  above  us,  and  not  to  have  it  in  us ;  they 
only  having  it  in  them,  who  see  it  above  them  (cf.  i  John 
ii.  8-1 1). 

'  These  things  said  He :  and  after  that  He  saith  unto  them, 
Our  friend  *  Lazarus  sleepeth;  but  I  go,  that  I  may  awake 
him  out  of  sleep.'  We  must  not  explain  this  announcement 
by  supposing  the  Lord  to  have  received  newer  and  later 
tidings  from  the  house  of  sickness,  informing  Him  that 
it  is  now  the  house  of  death ;  but  rather  by  the  inner 
power  of  his  spirit  He  knows  how  it  has  fared  with  his 
friend.  In  language  how  simple  does  He  speak  of  the 
mighty  work  which  He  is  about  to  accomplish ;  such  as 
shall  rather  extenuate  than  enhance  its  greatness  :  he  has 

'  Bengel :  Jam  multa  erat  bora,  sed  tamen  adbuc  erat  dies. 
^  Beng-el,  on  the  words  6  ^iXof  I'muiv  :  Quanta  humanitate  Jesus  ami- 
citiam  suani  cum  discipuiis  communlcat. 


TUB  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS.  421 

fallen  asleep  and  needs  to  be  awakened.  '  Then  said  his 
discijjles,  Zo?'d,  if  he  sleej),  he  shall  do  well  /  '  for,  as  the 
Evangelist  informs  us,  '  thei/  thought  thai  He  had  spoTcen  of 
taYmg  of  rest  hi  sleep.''  This  often  marks  the  favom*able 
crisis  in  sickness ;  and  they,  eagerly  seizing  upon  any  plea 
for  not  returning  as  into  the  jaws  of  destruction,  take  for 
granted  that  it  does  so  here.*  What  need  that  their 
beloved  Lord  should  expose  Himself,  and  with  Himself 
them,  to  extreme  peril,  when  without  his  presence  all  was 
going  well  ?  The  contemplation  of  death  as  a  sleep  is  so 
common,^  has  been  so  taken  up  into  the  symbolism,  con- 
scious or  unconscious,  of  all  nations,  that  it  was  no  diffi- 
culty in  the  image  itself  which  occasioned  the  misunder- 
standing upon  their  part ;  but,  his  words  being  capable  of 
a  figurative  or  a  literal  sense,  they  erroneously  accept 
them  in  the  latter.^  They  make  a  similar  mistake  at 
Matt.  xvi.  6-12  ;  and  probably  one  not  very  dissimilar, 
Luke  xxii.  38  ;  cf.  Jer.  xiii.  1 2.  '  Then  saith  Jesus  unto 
them  'plainly,  Lazarus  is  dead;  and  I  am  glad  for  your  sakes 
that  I  tvas  not  there,  to  the  intent  ye  may  believe.'  He  anti- 
cipates the  thought  which  could  hardly  not  have  risen  up 
in  their  minds,  namely,  why  He  had  not  been  there  to 
save.  Through  that  absence  of  his  there  should  be  a 
fuller  revelation  of  the  glory  of  God  than  could  have  been 
from  his  earlier  presence ;  a  revelation  that  should  lead 
them,  and  in  them  all  the  Church,  to  loftier  stages  of 

^  Grotius :  Discipuli  omnimodo  quserunt  Dominum  ab  isto  itinere 
avocare.  Ideo  omnibus  utuntur  argiimentis.  Calvin :  Libenter  hauG 
fugiendi  periculi  occasionem  arripiunt. 

*  Thus  in  the  exquisite  epigram  of  Callimachus,  x.  68  : 

Ty  Ct  ^au>v  o  Aikudoc,  'AicavQioc^  iipov  Jjtti'oj' 
Koij-iarai'   Oi'i'irrKtiv  fxi)  X'iyt  tvv(;  ayaOoix. 

'  Such  an  use  of  Koifiau<^ai  is  frequent  in  the  Old  Testament  (2  Chron. 
xiv.  i;  Isai.  xiv.  8;  Jer.  li.  57;  Job  xiv.  12;  Dan.  xii.  2);  nor  less  in  the 
New  (Matt,  xxvii.  52;  Acts  vii.  60;  xiii.  36;  i  Cor.  vii.  39;  xi.  30;  xv, 
C,  18,  20,  51 ;  1  Thess.  iv.  13,  14,  15;  2  Pet.  iii.  4):  so  K-m/u/ffie,  Ecclus. 
xlvi.  19.     AVe  have  a  corresponding  use  of  li^virvi'^nv,  Job  xiv.  12:  'Av- 

Ppwnog  c'f  KOii.u]h'tt(;  ov  fiijv  afaary  ioiq  av  6  ol'pavi<Q  vv  firi  avpfja^y,  Kal  oiuc 
i^i'7rvii>£r]'rovT(U  f^  virvov  avTwi', 


422  TEE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS. 

faith,  to  a  deejier  recognition  of  Himself,  as  tlie  Lord  of 
life  and  of  death.  He  is  glad,  for  his  disciples'  sake,  that 
it  thus  had  befallen ;  for  had  He  been  upon  the  spot,  He 
could  not  have  suffered  the  distress  of  those  so  dear  to  Him 
to  reach  the  highest  point,  but  must  have  interfered  at  an 
earlier  moment. 

When  He  summons  them  now  to  go,  *  Nevertheless,  let  us 
go  unto  him,'  it  is  plain  that  for  one  disciple  at  least  the 
anticipation  of  death,  as  the  certain  consequence  of  this 
perilous  journey,  is  not  overcome.  '  Then  said  Thomas, 
which  is  called  Didymus,  to  his  felloiv-disciples,^  Let  us  also 
(JO,  that  we  may  die  loith  Him  ; '  that  is,  with  Christ ;  for  to 
refer  these  words,  as  some  have  done,  to  Lazarus,  is  idle. 
Not  to  urge  objections  which  lie  deeper,  it  is  sufficient  to 
observe  that  the  words  indicate  not  merely  fellowship  in 
death,  but  in  dying,  which  was  manifestly  impossible  in 
the  case  of  one  already  dead.  On  two  other  occasions 
Thomas  is  introduced  with  the  same  interpretation  of  his 
name,  the  same  reminder  on  the  part  of  the  Evangelist  to 
his  Greek  reader  that  Thomas  in  the  Hebrew  is  equivalent 
to  Didymus,  that  is  twin  or  double,  in  the  Greek  (xx.  24 ; 
xxi.  2).  Is  there  any  mystery  here  ?  did  St.  John  intend 
us  to  see  any  significance  in  this  name,  any  coming  out  in 
the  man  of  the  qualities  which  it  expressed  ?  Many,  both 
in  ancient  times  and  in  modern,  have  thought  he  did ; 
and  certainly  the  analogy  of  other  similar  notices  in  this 
Gospel,  none  of  which  can  be  regarded  as  idle  (i.  42  ;  ix.  7), 
would  lead  to  this  conclusion.  It  is  very  possible  that 
Thomas  may  have  received  this  as  a  new  name  from  his 
Lord,  even  as  Simon  and  the  sons  of  Zebedee  certainly, 
and  Levi  very  probably,  received  in  like  manner  names 
from  Him.  It  was  a  name  which  told  him  all  he  had  to 
fear,  and  all  he  had  to  hope.  In  him  the  twins,  unbelief 
and  faith,  were  contending  with  one  another  for  mastery, 

^  'S.vj.iiiar)i]-!)r,  onlj  here  in  the  New  Testament,  occurs  once  in  Plato, 
Euthyd.  272  c. 


THE  nAISlNG   OF  LAZABUS.  423 

as  lilsau  and  Jacob,  the  old  man  and  the  new,  wrestled 
once  in  Eebecca's  womb  (Gen.  xxv.  23,  24).  He  was,  as 
indeed  all  are  by  nature,  the  double  or  twin-minded  man.' 
It  was  for  him  to  see  that  in  and  through  the  regeneration 
he  obtained  strength  to  keep  the  better,  and  to  cast  away 
the  worse,  half  of  his  being.  He  here  utters  words  which 
belong  to  one  of  the  great  conflicts  of  his  life.  They  are 
words  in  which  the  old  and  the  new,  unbelief  and  faith, 
are  both  speaking,  partly  one  and  partly  the  other ;  and 
St.  John  very  fitly  bids  us  note  that  in  this  there  was  the 
outcoming  of  all  which  his  name  embodied  so  well.^  For 
indeed  in  this  saying  of  his  there  is  a  very  singular 
blending  of  fiiith  and  belief, — faith,  since  he  counted  it 
better  to  die  with  his  Lord  than  to  live  forsaking  Him, — 
unbelief,  since  he  conceived  it  possible  that  so  long  as  his 
Lord  had  a  work  to  accomplish.  He,  or  any  under  the 
shield  of  his  presence,  could  be  overtaken  by  a  peril  which 
should  require  them  to  die  together.  Thomas  was  evi- 
dently of  a  melancholic  desponding  character ;  most  true 
to  his  Master,  yet  ever  inclined  to  look  at  things  on  their 
darkest  side,  finding  it  most  hard  to  raise  himself  to  the 
loftier  elevations  of  faith, — to  believe  other  and  more  than 
he  saw  (John  xiv.  5 ;  xx.  25),  or  to  anticipate  more 
favourable  issues  than  those  which  the  merely  human 
probabilities  of  an  event  portended.'     Men  of  all  tempera- 

'  '\vr)n  oi\pv\(>c,  Jam.'i.  8 ;  cf.  iv.  8  ;  compare  Horace  (Carm.  i.  6.  7): 
Duplex  Ulysses. 

^  All  this  has  been  excellently  brought  out  by  Ilengstenberg  (in  loo.). 
He  has,  however,  as  is  observed  above,  forerunners  here.  Thus  Theo- 
phylact  accounts  for  St.  John's  interpretation  of  the  name  Thomas,  that 
he  wished  to  indicate  the  congruity  between  the  man  and  his  name  (Vra 
hi'^y  i'fMi-  ori  ciTTaicTiKoc  rif  »;i').  And  Lampe  :  Nomen  Thomse  significa- 
tivum  fuisse,  facile  mihi  persnaserim.  Idque  eo  magis,  quia  nulla  alias 
Buppetit  ratio  tertia  vice  ab  Evangelistfl  nostro  repetiti  hujus  nominis 
interpretamenti,  nisi  sublimius  aliquid  hie  lateret.  He  then  refers,  but 
doubtfully,  to  that  passage,  namely  Gen.  xxv.  24-26,  in  which  the  key  to 
the  explr  nation  of  the  name  must  be  found. 

^  Maldonatus :  Theodorus  Mopsuest ,  Chrysostonuis,  et  Euthymiu,s  recte 
fortasse  indicant  hsec  verba,  quamvis  magnam  audacise  speciem  prje  se 


4-2,4  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

ments  and  all  characters  were  within  that  first  and  nearest 
circle  of  disciples,  that  they  might  be  the  representatives 
and  helpers  of  all  who  hereafter,  through  one  difficulty 
and  another,  should  attain  at  last  to  the  full  assurance  of 
fiiith.  Very  beautifully  Chrysostom  '  says  of  this  disciple, 
that  he  who  now  would  hardly  venture  to  go  with  Jesus  as 
far  as  to  the  neighbouring  Bethany,  afterwards  without 
Him,  without,  that  is,  his  bodily  presence,  travelled  to  the 
ends  of  the  world,  to  the  furthest  India,  daring  all  the 
perils  of  remote  and  hostile  nations. 

Martha  and  Mary  would  have  hardly  ventured  to  claim 
help  from  the  Lord,  till  the  sickness  of  their  brother  had 
assumed  an  alarming  character.  Lazarus  probably  died 
upon  the  same  day  that  the  messenger  announcing  his 
illness  had  reached  the  Lord ;  otherwise  it  could  scarcely 
have  been  said  that  when  Jesus  came,  '  he  had  lain  in  the 
grave  four  days  already.'  The  day  of  the  messenger's 
arrival  on  this  calculation  would  be  one  day ;  two  other 
our  Lord  abode  in  Pera}a  after  He  had  received  the 
message ;  and  one  more, — for  it  Avas  but  the  journey  of  a 
single  day, — He  would  employ  in  the  journey  to  Bethany. 
Dying  upon  that  day,  Lazarus,  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  Jews,  that  burial  should  immediately  follow  on  death 
(Acts  v.  6-10),  had  been  buried  upon  the  same,  as  a  com- 
parison of  this  verse  with  ver.  39  clearly  shows. 

But  before  the  arrival  of  Him,  the  true  Comforter,  other 
comforters,  some  formal,  all  weak,  had  arrived ;  drawn  to 
this  house  of  mourning  by  the  providence  of  God,  who 
would  have  many  witnesses  and  heralds  of  this  might- 
iest among  the  wondrous  works  of  his  Son.  The  nearness 
of  Bethany  to  Jerusalem  will  have  allowed  these  to  be 
the  more  numerous;  it  is  therefore  noticed  here:  ' Noiu 

ferant,  non  audacis  sed  timidi  esse  hominis,  amantis  tamen  Christum,  a 
quo  euni   certain   mortis,  ut  putabat,  periculum  avellere  non   posset. 
I^enpel :  Erat  quasi  medius  inter  banc  vitam  et  mortem,  sine  tristitia  et 
sine  laetitia  paratus  ad  moriendum  j  noi  ta'nen  sine  fide. 
'  In  Joh.  Horn.  Ixii. 


THE  RAISIXG   OF  LAZARUS.  425 

Bethany  was  nigh  unto  Jerusalem,  about  ff teen  furlongs  off,'' 
that  is,  about  two  miles ;  *  and  many  of  the  Jews  came  to 
Martha  and  Mary, '^  to  comfort  Viem^  concerning  their  brother.^ 
It  was  part  of  the  Jewish  ceremonial  of  grief,  which  was 
all  most  accurately  defined,'^  that  there  should  be  a  large 
gathering  of  friends  and  acquaintance,  not  less  than 
ten,  to  condole  with  those  that  mourned  for  their  dead 
(i  Chron.  vii.  22;  Job  ii.  11).  Such  condolence  was 
sometimes,  and  on  the  part  of  some,  the  true  '  sons  of 
consolation,'  a  reality  ;  yet  oftentimes  a  heartless  formality 
on  the  one  side  (Job's  comforters  have  become  a  byeword), 
as  an  aggravation  of  grief  on  the  other  ;  at  times  it  was  a 
treacherous  mockery,  when  the  very  authors  of  the  grief 
offered  themselves  as  the  comforters  in  it  (Gen.  xxxvii.  35). 
But  now  He  comes,  who  could  indeed  comfort  the  mourners, 
and  wipe  away  tears  from  their  eyes.  Yet  He  enters  not 
the  house  ;  that  was  already  occupied  by  '  the  Jews,'  by 
those  for  the  most  part  alien,  even  where  they  were  not 
hostile,  to  Him.  Not  amid  the  disturbing  influences  of 
that  uncongenial  circle  shall  his  first  interview  with  the 
sorrowing  sisters  find  place.  Probably  He  tarried  outside 
the  town,  and  not  very  far  from  the  spot  where  Lazarus 
was  buried ;  for  else  when  Mary  went  to  meet  Him,  the 
Jews  could  scarcely  have  exclaimed,  ^  She  gocth  unto  the 
grave  to  weep  there'  (ver.  31).  From  thence  He  may  have 
suffered  the  tidings  to  go  before  Him  that  He  was  at  hand. 
*  Then  Martha,  as  soon  as  she  heard  that  Jesus  ivas  coming, 

^  A'l  TTtpl  Alap'J«i'  Kci'i  IMopi'rtf ,  to  signify  Martha  and  Mary  themselves, 
is  an  idiom  familiar  to  all,  and  occurs  again,  Acts  xiii.  13.  Still  it  would 
scarcely  be  used,  at  least  in  the  better  times  of  the  language,  concerning 
any  who  had  not  friends  and  attendants  round  them,  who  were  not,  so  to 
speak,  the  centre  of  a  circle.  Thus  Lampe  rightly :  Nee  facile  occurret 
phrasis  nisi  de  personis  illustribus,  qui  amicorum  aut  ministrorum  grege 
cincti  erant.  Colligi  ergo  ex  ea  quoque  hie  potest  quod  Martha  et  Maiia 
lautioris  fortune  fuerint. 

-  The  days  of  mourning  were  thirty  :  of  these  the  three  first  were  davs 
of  zvcepinff  (fletus):  then  followed  seven  of  lamentation  (plauctus):  the 
remaining  twenty  of  mmirnimj  (mceror).  See  the  art.  '  Mourning,'  in  the 
Diet,  of  the  Bible. 


426  THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS. 

went  and  met  Him  ;  hut  Mary  sat  stilt  in  the  house.'  Wo 
are  not,  in  this  hastening  of  the  one  and  tarrying  of  the 
other,  to  trace,  as  many  Kave  done,  the  different  cha- 
racteristics of  the  two  sisters,  or  to  find  a  parallel  here  to 
Luke  X.  39.  For  on  that  former  occasion,  when  Mary 
chose  to  sit  still,  she  did  so  because  it  was  at  '  Jesus'  feet ' 
that  she  was  sitting ;  this  nearness  to  Him,  and  not  the 
sitting  still,  was  then  the  attraction.  The  same  motives 
which  kept  her  in  stillness  there,  would  now  have  brought 
her  on  swiftest  wings  of  love  to  the  place  where  the  Master 
was.  Moreover,  so  soon  as  ever  she  did  hear  that  her 
Lord  was  come  and  called  for  her,  '  she  arose  quickly,  and 
came  unto  Him  '  (ver.  29).  '  It  was  not,' to  use  Chrysostom's 
words,  '  that  Martha  was  now  more  zealous ;  but  Mary 
had  not  heard.'  This  much  characteristic  of  the  two 
sisters  may  very  probably  lie  in  the  narrative,  namely, 
that  Martha,  engaged  in  active  employments  even  in  the 
midst  of  her  grief,  may  have  been  more  in  the  way  of  hearing 
what  was  happening  abroad,  while  Mary,  in  her  deeper 
and  stiller  anguish,  was  sitting  retired  in  the  house,'  and 
less  within  reach  of  such  rumours  from  the  outer  world  ^ 
Martha  too  is  ready  to  change  words  with  Christ ;  while 
the  deeper  anguish  of  Mary  finds  utterance  in  that  one 
phrase  :  '  Lord,  if  Thou  hadst  been  here,  my  brother  had  not 
died ; '  and  then  she  is  silent.  This  word  indeed  is  common 
to  both ;  for  it  is  the  bitterest  drop  in  their  common  cup 
of  anguish,  that  all  might  so  easily  have  been  other- 
wise. Had  this  sickness  befallen  at  another  moment, 
when  their  Lord  was  within  easier  reach,  all  might  have 
been   averted ;    they    might  have    been    rejoicing    in    a 

*  On  sittiiiii:  as  tlie  attitude  of  grief  see  Neli.  i.  4;  Job  ii.  8, 13;  Ezek. 
viii.  14;  Matt,  xxvii.  61. 

^  Maldonatus  :  Quia  enim  dixerat  Martliam  obviam  Cliristo  processisse, 
ne  quis  miraretur,  aut  Maiiam  accusaret  quod  non  et  ipsa  processisset, 
excusat  earn  tacite,  dicens  sedisse  domi,  ideoque  nihil  de  Cbrij<ti  adventu 
copnovisse.  JNlartha  enim  cognovit,  quia  credibile  est  domo  aliqua  causa 
fiiisso  progressam,  et  solent  qui  foris  in  publico  versantur,  multos  colligere 
rumores,  quos  ignorant,  qui  domi  delitescunt. 


THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS.  427 

Jving,  instead  of  mournin<T  over  a  dead,  brother.  At  the 
same  time  to  imagine  that  there  is  any  the  slightest  re- 
proach latent  in  the  words  is  quite  to  misconceive  the 
spirit  in  which  they  are  uttered.  In  their  way  they  are 
words  rather  of  faith.  But  Martha  has  much  more  to 
say.  There  are  hopes,  though  she  ventures  only  at  a 
distance  to  allude  to  them,  which  she  is  cherishing  still : 
*  But  I  Jcnow  that  even  now,  even  now  when  all  seems  over, 
whatsoever  Thou  ivilt  ask '  of  God,  God  will  give  it  Thee.' 
High  thoughts  and  j)Oor  thoughts  of  Christ  cross  one 
another  here  ; — high  thoughts,  in  that  she  sees  in  Him 
one  whose  effectual  fervent  prayers  will  greatly  prevail ; — 
poor  thoughts,  m  that  she  regards  Him  as  obtaining  by 
prayer  that  which  indeed  He  has  by  the  oneness  of  his 
nature  with  the  Father.^ 

With  words  purposely  ambiguous,  being  meant  for  the 
trying  of  her  faith,  Jesus  assures  her  that  the  deep,  though 
uputtered,  longing  of  her  heart  shall  indeed  be  granted  : 
'  Thy  hrother  shall  rise  again.'  But  though  her  heart  could 
take  in  the  desire  for  so  immense  a  boon,  it  cannot  take 
in  its  actual  granting  (cf.  Acts  xii.  5,  15)  ;  it  shrinks  back 
half  in  unbelief  from  the  receiving  of  it.  She  cannol 
believe  that  these  words  mean  more  than  that  he,  with  all 
other  faithful  Israelites,  will  stand  in  his  lot  at  the  last 
day ;  and  with  a  slight  movement  of  impatience  at  such 
cold  comfort,  comfort  that  so  little  met  the  present 
longings  of  her  heart,  which  were  to  have  her  brother 
now,  she  answers,  '  I  hnoiv  that  he  shall  rise  again  in  the 
resxirrection  at  the  last  day.'  Her  love  was  as  yet  earthly, 
clinging  passionately  to  the  earthly  objects  of  its  affection, 
but  needing  to  be  infinitely  exalted  and  purified.     Unless 

'  She  uses  al-uy  (ona  u)'  a  I'r  //ffj/),  a  word  never  einployed  by  our  Lord 
to  express  his  own  asking-  of  tlie  Father,  but  always  h>'OTai  :  for  there  is 
a  certain  familiarity,  nay  authority,  in  his  askings,  which  iriwTar  expresses, 
but  (mVjii'  would  not ;  see  my  Si/noiiyms  of  the  Neic  Ttstamimt,  §  40. 

*  Grotius  :  Et  hie  infirmitas  appnret.  Putat  ilium  gratiosum  esse  apud 
Deum,  non  autem  in  illo  esse  pleuitudinem  Divinse  potestatis. 

28 


428  THE   RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

the  Lord  had  lifted  her  into  a  hi<^her  reg-ion  of  life,  it 
M'ould  have  profited  her  little  that  He  had  granted  her 
heart's  desire.'  What  wonld  it  have  helped  her  to  receive 
hack  her  brother,  if  again  she  was  presently  to  lose  him, 
if  once  more  they  were  to  be  parted  asunder  by  his  death 
or  her  own  ?  This  lower  boon  would  only  prove  a  boon  at 
all,  if  both  were  alike  made  partakers  of  a  higher  life  in 
Christ ;  then,  indeed,  death  would  have  no  more  power 
over  them,  then  they  would  truly  possess  one  another,  and 
for  ever :  and  to  this  the  wondrously  deep  and  loving 
words  of  Christ  would  lead  her.  They  are  no  unseasonable 
preaching  of  truths  remote  from  her  present  needs,  but 
the  answer  to  the  very  deepest  need  of  her  soul;  they 
would  lead  her  from  a  lost  brother  to  a  present  Saviour,  a 
Saviour  in  whom  alone  that  brother  could  be  truly  and  for 
ever  found.  *  Jesus  said  unto  her,  I  am  the  Resurrection, 
and  the  Life;  the  everlasting  triumphs  over  death,  they 
are  in  Me — no  remote  benefits,  as  thou  speakest  of  now, 
to  find  place  at  the  last  day  ;  no  powers  separate  or  separable 
from  Me,  as  thou  spakest  of  lately,  when  thou  desiredst  that 
I  should  ask  of  Another  that  which  I  possess  evermore  in 
Myself.  In  Me  is  victory  over  the  grave,  in  Me  is  life  eternal: 
by  faith  in  Me  that  becomes  yours  which  makes  death 
not  to  be  death,  but  only  the  transition  to  a  better  life.' 

Such  is  the  general  meaning  and  scope  of  these  glorious 
words.  When  we  ask  ourselves  what  this  title,  '  The 
Resurrection,"  involves,  we  perceive  that  in  one  aspect  it  is 
something  more,  in  another  something  less,  than  that 
other  title  of  '  The  Life,"  which  Christ  also  challenges  for 
his  own.  It  is  more,  for  it  is  life  in  conflict  with  and  over- 
coming death ;  it  is  life  being  the  death  of  death,  meeting 
it  in  its  highest  manifestation,  that  of  physical  dissolution 

^  This  is  the  sublime  thought  of  Wordsworth's  Laodamia.  She  who 
gives  her  name  to  that  sublime  poem  does  not  lift  herself,  she  has  none 
to  lift  her,  into  those  higher  regions  in  which  the  return  of  the  beloved 
would  be  a  blessing  and  a  boon;  and  thus  it  proves  to  her  a  joyless,  dis- 
appointing gift,  presently  again  to  be  snatched  away. 


THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS.  429 

and  decay,  and  vanquisliing'  it  there  (Isai.  xxv.  8  ;  xxvi.  19; 
Dan.  xii.  2) .  It  is  less,  for  so  long  as  that  title  belongs  to 
Him,  it  im]Dlies  something-  still  undone,  a  mortality  not 
yet  wholly  swallowed  up  in  life,  a  last  enemy  not  yet 
wholly  destroyed  and  put  under  his  feet  (i  Cor,  xv.  25,  26). 
As  He  is  '  the  Resurrection '  of  the  dead,  so  is  He  '  the  Life' 
of  the  living — absolute  life,  having  life  in  Himself,  for  so  it 
has  been  given  Him  of  the  Father  (John  v.  26),  the  one 
fountain  of  life ; '  so  that  all  who  receive  not  life  from  Him 
pass  into  the  state  of  death,  first  the  death  of  the  spirit, 
and  then,  as  the  completion  of  their  death,  the  death  also 
of  the  body. 

"What  follows,  '  He  that  helieveth  in  Me,  though  he  ivere 
de-ad,  yet  shall  he  live  ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  helieveth  in 
Me  shall  never  die,'  is  not  obscure  in  the  sum  total  of  its 
meaning;  yet  so  to  interpret  it,  as  to  prevent  the  two 
clauses  of  the  sentence  from  containing  a  repetition,  and  to 
find  progress  in  them,  is  not  easj'.  If  we  compare  this 
passage  with  John  vi.  32-59,  and  observe  the  repeated 
stress  which  is  there  laid  on  the  raising  up  at  the  last  day, 
as  the  great  quickening  work  of  the  Sou  of  God  (ver.  39, 
40,  44,  54),  we  shall  not  hesitate  to  make  the  declaration, 
'yet  shall  he  live,'  in  the  first  clause  here,  to  be  equivalent 
to  the  words,  '  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day,'  there, 
and  this  whole  first  clause  will  then  be  the  unfolding  of  the 
words,  '  I  am  the  Resurrection ; '  as  such  He  will  rescue 
every  one  that  helieveth  on  Him  from  death  and  the  grave. 
In  like  manner,  the  second  clause  answers  to,  and  is  the 
expansion  of,  the  more  general  declaration, '  lam  the  Life;' 
that  is,  'Whosoever  liveth,  every  one  that  draweth  the 
breath  of  life  and  helieveth  upon  Me,  shall  know  the  power 
of  an  everlasting  life,  shall  never  truly  die.'  Here,  as  so 
often  in  our  Lord's  words,  the  temporal  death  is  taken  no 
account  of,  but  quite  overlooked,  and  the  believer  in  Him 

^  '0  swv  (Rev.  i.  8);  6  l^ujovoiwv  (Rom.  iv.  17);  7)  ^w/)  »/|iwi'  (Col.  iii, 
4j;   TT'jyi}  Zi^iJQ  (i*3.  X.XXV,  9);   6  [.lovot:  ex'^^  ^')^  ddaraaiav  (i  Tim.  vi.  i6). 


130  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

is  contemplated  as  already  lifted  above  death,  and  made 
partaker  of  everlasting  life  (John  vi.  47 ;  cf.  Ephes.  ii.  6 ; 
I  John  iii.  14).^ 

Having  claimed  all  this  for  Himself,  He  demands  of 
Martha  whether  she  can  receive  it :  '  Believest  thou  this, — 
that  I  am  this  Lord  of  life  and  of  death  ?  Doth  thy  faith  in 
tho  divine  verities  of  the  resurrection  and  eternal  life  after 
death  centre  in  Me  ? '  Her  answer,  '  Yea,  Lord,  I  believe 
that  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  So7i  of  God,  which  should  come 
into  the  world '  (i.  9  ;  vi.  14;  Matt.  xi.  3),  is  perhaps  more 
direct  than  at  first  sight  it  appears.  Yov  one  of  the  offices 
of  Christ  the  Messiah  was,  according  to  the  Jewish  ex- 
pectations, to  raise  the  dead ;  and  tlms,  confessing  Him  to 
be  the  Christ,  she  implicitly  confessed  Him  also  to  be  the 
quickener  of  the  dead.  Or  she  may  mean, — '  I  believe  all 
glorious  things  concerning  Thee  ;  there  is  nought  which  I 
do  not  believe  concerning  Thee,  since  I  believe  Thee  to  be 
Him  in  whom  every  glorious  gift  for  the  world  is  centred,' 
— speaking  like  one  whose  faith,  as  that  of  most  persons  at 
all  times  must  be,  was  imjplicit  rather  than  explicit ;  she 
did  not  know  all  which  that  name,  '  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,''  involved,  but  all  which  it  did  involve  she  was  ready 
to  believe. 

She  says  no  more;  for  now  she  will  make  her  sister 
partaker  of  the  joyful  tidings  that  He,  the  long  waited  for, 
long  desired,  is  arrived  at  last.  Some  good  thing  too,  it 
may  be,  she  expects  from  his  high  and  mysterious  words, 
though  she  knows  not  precisely  what :  a  ray  of  comfort 
has  found  its  way  into  her  heart,  and  she  would  fain  make 
her  sister  a  sharer  in  this.  Yet  she  told  not  her  tidings 
openly,  suspecting,  and  having  good  cause  to  suspect  (ver. 
46),  that  some  of  their  visitors  from  Jerusalem  might  be 
of  unfriendly  disposition  towards  the  Lord.  *  She  called 
Mary  her  sister  secretly,  saying,  The  Master  is  come,  and 

^  Bengel :  Mors  Cliiisti  mortem  enervavit.  Post  mortem  Christi  mors 
credentium  non  est  mors. 


THE   TiAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  431 

salleth  for  thcc'  '  The  Master  '  was  a  name,  probably  the 
name,  by  wliicb  the  Lord  was  known  in  the  innermost 
circle  of  bis  own  (Matt,  xxiii.  8).  That  He  had  asked  for 
Mary,  we  had  not  hitherto  learned.  'As  soon  as  she  heard 
that,  she  arose  quickbj,  and  came  unto  Him,'  The  Jews  take 
it  for  granted  that  she  is  hastening  in  a  jiaroxysm  of  her 
grief  to  the  grave,  to  weep  there  ;  as  it  was  the  custom  of 
Jewish  women  often  to  visit  the  graves  of  their  kindred,'  and 
this  especially  during  the  first  days  of  their  mourning ; — 
and  they  follow ;  for  thus  was  it  provided  of  God  that  this 
miracle  should  have  many  witnesses.  '  Then  ivhen  Mary 
was  come  xohere  Jesus  luas,  and  saw  Him,  she  fell  down  at  his 
feet,'  ^  Nothing  of  the  kind  is  recorded  of  Martha  (ver.  20), 
whether  this  be  the  accident  of  a  fuller  narrative  in  one 
place  than  in  the  other ;  or  that  we  have  here  a  character- 
istic touch  differencing  one  sister  from  the  other.  But 
even  if  their  demeanour  is  different,  their  first  words  are 
the  same :  *  Lord,  if  Thou  hadst  heen  here,  my  brother  had 
not  died,'  The  words  with  which  her  sister  had  greeted 
the  Lord  thus  repeating  themselves  a  second  time  from 
her  lips,  give  us  a  glimpse  of  all  that  had  passed  in  that 
mournful  house,  since  the  beloved  was  laid  in  earth. 
Often  during  that  four  days'  interval  the  sisters  had  said 
one  to  the  other,  how  different  the  issues  might  have  been, 
if  the  divine  friend  had  been  with  them.  Such  had  been, 
the  one  thought  in  the  hearts,  the  one  word  upon  the  lips, 
of  both,  and  therefore  was  so  naturally  the  first  spoken  by 
each,  and  that  altogether  independently  of  the  other.  She 
says  no  more.  Wliat  the  Lord  can  do,  or  will  do,  she 
remits  altogether  to  Him,  not  so  much  as  suggesting  on 
her  own  part  ought. 

^  Eosenmiiller,  AUe  vnd  Xcuc  Jlorf/enlaiul,  vol.  iv.  p.  281  ;  Geier,  De 
Luctu  Ilchrceorum,  \\i.  §  26. 

*  Compare  Cicero's  account  of  liis  first  interview  with  a  Sicilian 
raotber  whom  the  last  and  cruelty  of  Verres  had  made  desolate  {In 
Verr.  v.  39)  :  Mihi  obviam  venit,  et  ita  me  suam  salutem  appellans,  filii 
nomen  implorans,  mihi  ad  pedes  misera  jacuit,  quasi  ego  excitare  filium 
ejus  ab  inferis  possem. 


4-32  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

At  the  spectacle  of  all  tliis  grief,  the  sisters  weeping, 
and  even  the  more  indifferent  visitors  from  Jerusalem 
"weeping  likewise,  the  Lord  also  '  groaned  in  the  spirit,  and 
ivas  troubled.'^  The  word  which  we  translate  'groaned'"^ 
is  fiir  more  expressive  of  indignation  and  displeasure  than 
of  grief;  which  last,  save  as  a  certain  amount  of  it  is 
contained  in  all  displeasure,  it  means  not  at  all.  But  at 
what  and  with  whom  was  Jesus  thus  indignant  ?  The 
notion  of  some  Greek  expositors,^  that  He  was  indignant 
with  Himself, — that  we  have  here  the  indications  of  an 
inward  struggle  to  repress,  as  something  Aveak  and  un- 

^  Augustine  lays  an  emphasis  on  this  trapa^ti'  tnvror,  turbavit  seipsum 
(In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xlix  ) :  Quis  enini  eum  posset  nisi  se  ipse  turbare  ? 
(cf.  De  Civ.  Dei,  xiv.  9.  3);  and  Bengel:  Affectus  Jesu  non  fiiere  pas- 
siones,  sed  voluntarifB  commotioneS;  quas  plane  in  sua  potestate  habebat ; 
et  Lsec  turbatio  fuit  plena  ordinis  et  rationis  summ?e.  It  would  then 
express  something  of  the  nerpioTrdOaa  of  the  Academy,  as  opposed  on  the 
one  side  to  frantic  outbreaks  of  grief,  on  the  other  to  the  dira Ha  of  the 
Stoics.  His  grief  no  doubt  did  keep  this  mean;  but  this  active  f-apcKn' 
iavTi'>v  must  not  be  pressed;  since  elsewhere,  on  similar  occasions,  we 
have  the  passive,  impaxOi]  r(p  nvivfjan  (John  xiii.  21  ;  cf.  xii.  27),  Vv-ith 
which  this  is  identical. 

^  'Riii3fjinf'i()i.ica  (from  (ipijn],  MoipM,  a  name  of  Persephone  or  Hecate, 
signifying  The  Angered,  so  called  ^id  r6  <poiitp'ov  xal  KaTarXtjicTiKov  ruv 
dnifiuvoc,  Lucian ;  and  cognate  with  fremo,  i3in6oc,  (pinixdoJ)  does  not  mean 
to  be  moved  with  any  strong  passion,  as  grief  or  fear,  but  always  implies 
anger  and  indignation.  See  Passow,  s.  v. ;  and  so  all  the  Greek  inter- 
preters; the  Vulgate,  which  has infremuit;  and  Luther:  Er  ergrimmeto 
im  Geiste.  Storr  {Ojnisc.  Acad.  vol.  iii.  p.  254):  Quern  vulgo  sumunt 
tristitice  significatura,  is  plane  incertus  esse  videtur,  cum  nullo,  quod 
sciamus,  exemplo  confirmari  possit,  Groecisque  patribus  tam  valde  ignotus 
fuerit,  ut  uiateriam  ad  succensendum,  quamvis  non  repertam  in  Marias  et 
comitum  ejus  ploratu,  qufererent  certe  in  huraanaj  naturre  (rijc  r^ctpK-oc) 
Jesu  propensione  ad  tristitiam,  quam  Jesus  .  .  .  increpaverit.  With  this 
consent  the  other  passages  in  the  New  Testament  where  i/ifSpiiudaOca  is 
used,  as  twice  of  our  Lord  commanding,  ti/ider  the  threat  of  his  earnest 
displeasure,  those  whom  He  had  healed,  to  keep  silence  (Matt.  ix.  30; 
Mark  i.  43) ;  and  once  of  those  who  were  indignant  with  Mary  in  the 
matter  of  the  ointment  {k<iI  iiijioi^CovTo  ahry,  Mark  xiv.  5).  Compare 
Isai.  xvii.  13  (Symmachus)  and  Ps.  xxxviii.  4  (Symm.  and  Aquila),  and 
ipj3p!iu]fin  opyijc,  Jer.  ii.  8  (LXX).  Lampe  and  Kuinoel  defend  the  right 
explanation  ;  and  L.ange  (  Theol.  Stud,  vnd  Krit.  1836,  p.  714,  seq.);  but 
by  far  the  completest  discussion  on  ^i.tftoij.idnikii,  and  its  exact  meani]3g 
here,  is  by  Gumlich  in  these  same  Stttaien,  18 62,  pp.  260-268. 

'  See  Suicer,  Thes.  s.  v.  t/(/3pi/x(io/ia(. 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  433 

worthy,  that  human  pity,  which  found  presently  its  ut- 
terance in  tears, — is  not  to  be  accepted  for  an  instant. 
Christianity  demands  the  regulation  of  the  natural  affec- 
tions, but  it  does  not,  like  the  Stoic  philosophy,  demand 
their  suppression ;  so  far  from  this,  it  bids  us  to  '  weep 
with  them  that  weep  '  (Rom.  xii.  15) ;  and,  in  the  beautiful 
words  of  Leighton,  that  we  '  seek  not  altogether  to  dry 
the  stream  of  sorrow,  but  to  bound  it,  and  keep  it  within 
its  banks.'  Some,  as  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  Lampe, 
suppose  Him  indignant  in  spirit  at  the  hostile  dispositions 
which  He  already  traced  and  detected  among  the  Jews 
that  were  present,  the  unbelief  on  their  part  with  which 
He  foresaw  that  great  work  of  his  would  be  received. 
Others,  that  his  indignation  was  excited  by  the  unbelief  of 
Martha  and  Mary  and  the  others,  which  they  manifested 
in  their  weeping,  testifying  thereby  that  they  did  not 
believe  that  He  would  raise  their  dead.  But  He  Himself 
wej)t  presently,  and  there  was  nothing  in  these  natural 
tears  of  theirs  to  rouse  a  feeling  of  displeasure. 

But  this  indignation  of  his  is  capable  of  a  perfectly 
adequate  explanation.  It  was  the  indignation  which  the 
Lord  of  life  felt  at  all  that  sin  had  wi'ought.  He  beheld 
death  in  all  its  dread  significance,  as  the  wages  of  sin ; 
the  woes  of  a  whole  world,  of  which  this  was  but  a  little 
sample,  rose  up  before  his  eyes ;  all  its  mourners  and  all 
its  graves  were  present  to  Him.  For  that  He  was  about 
to  wipe  away  the  tears  of  those  present  and  turn  for  a 
little  while  their  sorrow  into  joy,  did  not  truly  alter  the 
case.  Lazarus  rose  again,  but  only  to  taste  a  second  time 
the  bitterness  of  death;  these  mourners  He  might  comfort, 
but  only  for  a  season  ;  these  tears  He  might  stanch,  only 
again  hereafter  to  flow ;  and  how  many  had  flowed  and 
must  flow  with  no  such  Comforter  to  wipe  them,  even  for 
a  season,  away.  As  He  contemplated  all  this,  a  mighty 
indignation  at  the  author  of  all  this  woe  possessed  his 
h(iart.     And  now  He  will  no  longer  delay,  but  "will  do  at 


4-34  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

once  battle  with  death,  and  with  him  that  hath  the  power 
of  death,  the  devil  ;  and  spoiling,  though  but  in  part,  the 
goods  of  the  strong  man  armed,  will  give  proof  that  a 
Stronger  is  here.'  And  that  they  may  the  sooner  stand 
face  to  face.  He  demands,  '  Where  have  ye  laid  him  ?  They 
said  unto  Him,  Lord,  come  and  see.  Jesus  wept,'  ^  or,  more 
accurately,   'shed  tears,' ^  Himself  borne  along  with  the 

^   Apollinariua :    'Qnti  rif  ytwa'ioc:  apinrfvi^  roi'x   TroXf^i/oi'c   iSi'j}',    lavTov 

Trapui^vis  Kara  Twv  avrnrdXwy.  Melanchthon :  Fremitus  indignatio  quse- 
dam  est  qua  comraovetur  Cbristus  ad  versus  regnuui  mortis,  volens  pecca- 
tum  et  mortem  evacuare,  ut  ostendat  se  odisse  regnum  mortis,  nee  velle 
ut  pereat  peccator. 

^  We  may  compare,  for  purposes  of  contrast,  the  words  of  Artemis  in 
that  majestic  concluding  scene  in  the  Ilippo/i/tus  of  Euripides,  wherej  in 
the  midst  of  his  misery,  Hippolytus  asks, 

and  she  answers, 

'OpoJ,  Kcir   Ijnauif  0   oil  fif/iif  [iaXtli'  ^aKpv, 

Full  €as  is  that  scene  of  soothing  and  elevating  power,  and  even  of  a  divine 
sympathy,  yet  a  God  of  tears  was  a  higher  conception  than  the  heathen 
world  could  reach  to.  After  indeed  the  Son  of  God  had  come,  and  in 
that  strange  and  inexplicable  way  had  begun  to  modify  the  whole  feeling 
of  the  heathen  world,  long  before  men  had  even  heard  of  his  name,  the 
Eoman  poet,  in  a  passage  among  the  noblest  which  antiquity  supplies, 
could  express  himself  thus : 

.  ,  .  mollissima  corda 
Ilumano  generi  dare  se  natura  fatetur, 
QuiB  lacrymas  dedit :  hcec  nostri pars  optima  sensus. 

Juvenal,  Sat.  xv.  1 31-13 3. 

On  the  sinlessness  of  these  natural  affections,  or  rather  on  their  necessity 
for  a  full  humanity,  see  Augustine,  De  Civ.  Dei,  xiv.  9.  3. 

*  For  thus  the  distinction,  scarcely  accidental,  between  the  K-Xatovrf^ 
of  the  others  and  his  iSaKpvaei ,  would  be  preserved.  Elsewhere  (Luke 
xix.  41)  the  K\aiiu>  is  itself  ascribed  to  Him.  Here,  as  Bengel  puts  it 
well,  lacrymatus  est,  non  ploravit.  There  is  a  fine  passage  in  Spenser's 
Fairy  Quern,  ii.  i.  42,  when  Sir  Guyon  lijihts  on  the  corpse  of  Mordant, 
which  may  or  may  not  have  been  written  with  this  passage  in  view. 
After  describing  the  horror  with  which  the  spectacle  of  the  dead  filled 
Sir  Guyon,  the  poet  goes  on — 

'  At  last  his  mighty  ghost  gan  deep  to  groan. 
As  lion,  grudging  in  his  great  disdain, 
Mourns  inwardly,  and  makes  to  himself  moan. 
Till  ruth  and  frail  aflection  did  constrain 
His  stout  courage  to  stoop,  and  shew  his  inward  pain.' 


THE  liAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  435 

great  tide  of  sorrow  and  not  seeking  to  resist  it.  There 
are  yet  before  Him  two  other  occasions  of  tears  (Luke  xx. 
41  ;  Heb.  V.  7).  '  The  tears  of  the  text/  says  Donne,  '  are 
as  a  spring,  a  well,  belonging  to  one  houselaoid,  the  sisters 
of  Lazarus.  The  tears  over  Jerusalem  are  as  a  river, 
belonging  to  a  whole  country.  The  tears  upon  tho  Cross 
(?)  are  as  the  sea,  belonging  to  the  whole  world.' 

Some  of  the  Jews  present,  moved  to  good  will  by  this 
lively  sympathy  of  the  Lord  with  the  sorrows  of  those 
around  Him,  exclaimed,  'Behold  how  He  loved  him!'  Not, 
however,  all :  '  And  some  of  them  said,  Could  not  this  man, 
which  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  have  caused  that  even  this 
man  should  not  have  died  ?  '  It  is  an  invidious  suggestion. 
He  weeps  over  this  calamity  now,  but  was  it  not  in  his 
power  to  avert  it,  if  He  had  chosen  ?  He  who  could  open 
the  eyes  of  the  blind  (they  refer  to  the  case  which,  through 
the  judicial  investigation  that  followed,  had  made  so  much 
noise  at  Jerusalem,  John  ix.),  could  He  not  (by  his  prayer 
to  God)  have  hindered  that  this  man  should  have  died  ? 
There  were  indeed  in  this  accusation,  as  so  often  in 
similar  cases,  assumptions  mutually  contradicting  one 
another;  the  assumption  that  He  possessed  such  power 
and  favour  with  God  as  would  have  enabled  Him  to  stay 
the  stroke  of  death,  resting  on  the  assumption  of  so 
eminent  a  goodness  upon  his  part,  as  would  have  secured 
that  his  power  should  not  be  grudgingly  restrained  in  any 
case  suitable  for  its  exercise.  It  is  characteristic  of  the 
truth  of  this  narrative  (although  it  has  been  urged  as  an 
argument  against  it),  that  they,  dwellers  in  Jerusalem, 
should  refer  to  this  miracle  which  had  so  lately  been  per- 
formed there,  rather  than  to  the  previous  raisings  from 
the  dead,  which  in  themselves  were  so  much  more  to  the 
point,  as  evidences  of  that  lordship  over  death  which  He 
mio-ht  have  exerted  had  He  willed.  But  those,  accom- 
plished  at  an  earlier  period  of  his  ministry  and  in  the 
remoter  Galilee,  they  may  have  only  heard  of  by  obscure 


4-36  THE    BAISTNG   OF  LAZARUS. 

report,  if  indeed  they  liad  heard  of  them  at  all.  This 
miracle  on  the  contrary,  so  recently  wrought,  and  at  their 
very  doors,  which  had  roused  so  much  contradiction, 
■which  it.  had  been  so  vainly  attempted  to  prove  an  impos- 
ture, was  exactly  the  mighty  work  of  the  Lord  that  would 
be  uppermost  in  their  thoughts.  Yet  for  all  this  we  may 
feel  sure  that  the  maker-up  of  the  narrative  from  later 
and  insecure  traditions  would  inevitably  have  adduced 
those  miracles  of  a  like  kind,  as  arguments  of  the  power 
of  Jesus  over  death. 

He  meanwhile  and  they  have  reached  the  tomb,  though 
not  without  another  access  of  that  indignant  horror,  an- 
other of  those  mighty  shudderings,  which  shook  the  frame 
of  the  Lord  of  life, — so  dreadful  did  death  seem  to  Him 
who,  looking  through  all  its  natural  causes,  at  which  we 
often  stop  short,  saw  it  altogether  as  the  seal  and  token  of 
sin ;  so  unnatural  did  its  usurpation  appear  over  a  race 
made  for  immortality  (Wisd.  i.  13,  14)  :  ^  Jesus  therefore, 
again  groaning  in  Himself,  cometh  to  the  grave.''  This,  as 
the  whole  course  of  the  narrative  shows,  was  without  the 
town  (ver.  30),  according  to  the  universal  custom  of  the 
East  (Luke  vii.  12),  which  did  not  suffer  a  depositing  of 
the  dead  among  the  living.'  '  It  was  a  cave,  and  a  stone 
lay  upon  it.^  Such  were  commonly  the  famil}^  vaults  of 
the  Jews  ;  sometimes  natural  (Gen.  sxiii.  9  ;  Judith  xvi. 
23),  sometimes,  as  was  this,^  artificial  and  hollowed  out  by 
man's  labour  from  the  rock  (Isai.  xxii.  1 6 ;  Matt,  xxvii.  60), 
in  a  garden  (John  xix.  41),  or  in  some  field  the  possession 
of  the  family  (Gen.  xxiii.  9,  17-20  ;  xxxv.  18  ;  2  Kin.  xxi. 
13)  ;  with  recesses  in  the  sides  (Isai.  xiv.  15),  wherein  the 
bodies  were  laid,  occasionally  with  chambers  one  beyond 
another.  Sometimes  the  entrance  to  these  tombs  was  on 
a  level ;   sometimes,  as  most  probably  here,  there  was  a 

*  Tiosonmiiller,  Alte  und  Neue  Morgenland,  vol.  iv.  p.  281. 

*  Ammoiiius :    "Airpoj'   Kal    aTrijXaiDv   ^lafipii'    avrpov    fiiv    to    avrofvlc 
KOiXuijjLa'  ffTryXawv  de,  to  ;^{(j007rotj;roj'.      It  is  anifKawv  \i&IQ» 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  437 

descent  to  tliem  by  steps.  The  stone  wliich  bloclced  up 
the  entrance,  kept  aloof  the  beasts  of  prey,  above  all  the 
numerous  jackals,  which  else  might  have  found  their  way 
into  these  receptacles  of  the  dead,  and  torn  the  bodies.  It 
was  naturally  of  a  size  and  weight  not  easily  to  be  moved 
away  (Mark  xvi.  3).  The  tomb  of  our  blessed  Lord  Him- 
self, with  its  '  door,'  appears  rather  to  have  had  a  hori- 
zontal entrance.' 

Among  many  slighter  indications  that  Mary  and  Martha 
were  not  among  the  poor  of  their  people,  this,  that  they 
should  possess  such  a  family  vault,  is  one.  The  possession 
of  such,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  must  have  been  a 
j)rivilege  of  the  wealthier  orders ;  only  such  would  be  thus 
laid  in  the  sepulchres  of  their  fathers.^  We  have  another 
indication  of  the  same  in  the  large  concourse  of  mourners, 
and  those  certainly  not  of  the  meaner  sort,  who  assembled 
from  Jerusalem  to  console  the  sisters  in  their  bereavement ; 
for  even  in  grief  it  is  too  often  true,  that  '  wealth  maketh 
many  friends  ;  but  the  poor  is  separated  from  his  neigh- 
bour '  (Prov.  six.  4).  The  pound  of  ointment  of  spikenard, 
'very  costly,''  with  which  Mary  anointed  the  Saviour's  feet 
(John  xii.  3),  points  the  same  way.  She  who  was  '  troubled 
about  many  things  '  (Luke  x.  41)  was  probably  the  mistress 
of  a  numerous  household  about  which  to  be  troubled ; 
and  the  language  of  the  original  at  ver.  19,  however  it 
may  mean  Martha  and  Mary,  and  not  those  around  them, 
yet  means  them  as  the  centre  of  an  assemblage.  Chrysostom 
assumes  the  sisters  to  have  been  highborn,^  as  generally 
do  the  early  interpreters.  They  lay,  however,  a  mistaken 
emphasis  upon  '  the  toivn  of  Mary  and  her  sister  Martha ' 

^  See  Winer,  Rcalworlerhvch,  s.  v.  Griiber ;  Did.  of  the  Bible,  art. 
Burial. 

-  Becker  {Charicles,  toI.  ii.  p.  190)  observes  the  sfime  of  the  tnij- 
iiara  among  the  Greeks.  For  the  poorer  classe.s  there  were  burial-places 
in  common,  as  with  the  Romans  also  (see  his  Gnllus,  vol.  ii.  p.  293  j  and 
the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom,  Antt.  s.  v.  Funus,  p.  436). 

'   V.vyiv'taTipai. 


4-38  TEE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

(ver.  i),  who  conclude  from  tliese  words  tliat  Bethany 
belonged  to  them.  The  Levitical  law  rendered,  and  was 
intended  to  render,  any  such  accumulation  of  landed  pro- 
perty in  the  hands  of  one  or  two  persons  impossible ;  not 
to  say  that,  by  as  good  a  right,  Bethsaida  might  be 
concluded  to  have  belonged  to  Andrew  and  Peter,  for  the 
language  is  exactly  similar  (John  i.  45). 

'  Jesus  said,  Take  ye  away  the  stone.  Martha,  the  sister  of 
hi')n  that  v:as  dead,  saith  unto  Him,  Lord,  hy  this  time  he 
stioiJceth  J  for  he  hath  been  dead  four  days.'  Why  does  St. 
John  designate  Martha  as  '  the  sister  of  him  that  was  dead,' 
when  this  was  abundantly  plain  before  ?  Probably  to 
account  for  her  remonstrance.  The  sister  of  the  dead,  she 
would  naturally  be  more  shocked  than  another  at  the 
thought  of  the  exposure  of  that  countenance,  upon  which 
corruption  had  already  set  its  seal ;  she  would  most  shud- 
deringly  contemplate  that  beloved  form  made  a  spectacle 
to  strangers,  now  when  it  was  become  an  abhorring  even 
to  them  that  had  loved  it  best.'  Yet  the  words  of  her 
remonstrance  must  not  be  understood  as  an  experience 
which  she  now  makes,  but  rather  as  a  conclusion  which 
she  draws  from  the  length  of  time  dui-ing  which  the  body 
had  already  lain  in  the  grave.  With  the  rapid  decomposition 
that  goes  forward  in  a  hot  country,  necessitating  as  it  does 
an  almost  immediate  burial,  the  'four  days '  might  well 
have  brought  this  about.  At  the  same  time,  it  gives  to 
this  miracle  almost  a  monstrous  character,  if  we  suppose  it 
was  actually  the  reanimating  of  a  body  which  had  already 
undergone  the  process  of  corruption.  Rather  He  who  sees 
the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  who  had  intended  that 
Lazarus  should  live  again,  had  watched  over  that  body  in 
his  providence,  that  it  should  not  hasten  to  corruption. 
If  the  poet  could  imagine  a  divine  power  guarding  from 

^  Godet  brings  this  out  well — but  also  makes  another  point:  C'est 
done  ici  une  exclamation  dictee  par  un  sentiment  de  respect  pour  celui  a 
qui  elle  parle :  Seit/nevr,  et  par  une  sorte  de  pudeur  pour  la  Bersonne, 
aacr^e  pour  elle,  de  celui  dont  il  s'agit. 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  439 

all  defeature  and  wrong-  the  body  wliich  was  tliiis  preserved 
only  for  an  honourable  burial ;  '  by  how  much  more  may 
we  assume  a  like  preservation  for  that  body  which,  not  in 
the  world  of  fiction,  but  of  reality,  was  to  become  ai^ain  so 
soon  the  tabernacle  for  the  soul  of  one  of  Christ's  servants. 
No  conclusion  of  an  opposite  kind  can  be  drawn  from 
Martha's  words,  spoken,  as  they  plainly  are,  before  the 
stone  has  been  removed.^ 

This  much,  however,  her  words  do  reveal — that  her 
faith  in  Christ,  as  able  even  then  to  quicken  her  dead 
brother,  had  already  failed.  There  is  nothing  strange  in 
this.  Faith,  such  as  hers, ,  would  inevitably  have  these 
alternating  ebbs  and  flows  ;  from  which  a  much  stronger 
faith  would  scarcely  be  exempt.  All  which  she  concludes 
from  this  command  to  remove  the  stone  is  a  desire  on  the 
Lord's  part  to  look  once  more  on  the  countenance  of  his 
friend ;  from  this  purpose  she  would  fain  recall  Him,  by 
urging  how  death  and  corruption  must  have  been  busy  in 
that  tomb  where  her  brother  had  already  slept  his  four 
days'  sleep.  The  Lord  checks  and  rebukes  her  unbelief : 
*  8aid  I  not  tinto  thee,  that,  if  thou  ivouldest  hdieve,  thou 

^  Homer,  //.  xxiv.  1S-21, 

'  It  is  singular  how  generally  this  )/'*;  o'^h  is  taken  in  proof  of  that, 
whereof  it  is  only  a  conjecture,  and,  I  am  persuaded,  an  erroneous  one; 
the  TfrapTolog  yap  tan,  which  follows,  being  decisive  that  Martha  only 
guesses  from  the  common  order  of  things  that  corruption  will  have  be- 
gun. Yet  Augustine  {In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xlix.)  :  Resuscitavit  putentem. 
Tertulliau  (^De  Resur.  Cam.  53)  speaks  of  the  soul  of  Lazarus,  quam 
nemo  jam  foetere  senserat.  Hilary  (^De  Trin.  vi.  §  33)  :  Foetens  Lazarus. 
Ambrose  says  of  the  bystanders  (J5e  Fide  lieswr.  ii.  80)  :  Fcetorem 
sentiunt.  Bernard  (In  Assum.  Serin,  iv.)  :  Foetere  jam  coeperat.  Sedu- 
lius:  Corruptura  tabo  exhalabat  odorem.  Compare  Prudentius  (Apo- 
theosis, 759-766);  Chrysostom  (Horn.  lii.  in  Joh.);  and  Calvin:  Alios 
Christus  suscitavit,  sed  nunc  in  putrido  cadavere  potentiam  suam  exserit. 
In  the  Letter  of  Pontius  Pilate  to  the  Emperor  Tiberius  (Thilo,  Codex 
Apocryphus,  p.  807)  this  circumstance,  as  enliancing  the  wonder  of  tha 
miracle,  is  urged  with  characteristic  exaggerations:  'Uttcjjov  nva  Aa^upov 
Ttrpar)jjitpov  ix  iiKpii)i>  uviaTj^at,  Cmp  apfi'n'ov  ijCt]  I'j^ovTa  ru  aaJ//a  vTro  riDi' 
l\KO-jtri)Ti)>v  OKwXiiKioi;  koI  to  ooawStg  tKfii'O  aoina  to  Klifitvor  tv  ry  TCKp'^ 
tK(\(V(Jt    T(>i\tii''    Kai    wj   f(c    TTnarou    vv^aic;,   oi'roi,'  tK  tov   Tajpov  t^^Xfe'tr, 


4-40  THE   RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

sho  uldeat  see  the  fjlory  of  God  ? '  Here,  as  ever,  faitli  is  set 
forth  as  the  condition  under  which  alone  his  miraculous 
power  can  be  exei-ted.  But  when  had  He  said  this  ? 
Was  it  in  that  conversation  which  He  held  with  her  when 
first  they  met  ?  or  in  some  prior  conversation,  which  St. 
John  has  not  lecorded  ?  Not,  I  should  say,  either  in  this 
or  in  that;  but  these  very  words  occur  in  the  message 
which  the  Lord  sends  back  to  the  sorrowing  sisters  when 
He  first  learns  the  sickness  of  his  friend  (ver.  4),  the 
message  itself  furnishing  the  key  to  the  whole  subsequent 
naiTative.     To  those  words,  so  spoken,  he  refers. 

And  now  Martha  acquiesces  :  she  does  believe,  and  no 
longer  opposes  the  hindrance  of  her  unbelief  to  the  work 
which  the  Lord  would  accomplish.  '  Then,'  those  nearest 
of  kin  thus  consenting,  '  they  toolc  aivay  the  stone  from  the 
•place  where  the  dead  was  laid.  And  Jesus  lifted  up  his  eyes, 
and  said,  Father,  I  thanh  Thee  that  Thou  hast  heard  Me.' 
The  thanks  to  the  Father  are  an  acknowledgment  that  the 
power  which  He  is  about  to  display  is  from  the  Father 
(John  V.  19,  20).  But  any  such  thanksgiving  might  easily 
have  been*  misinterpreted  by  the  disciples  then,  and  by  the 
Church  afterwards ;  as  though  it  would  have  been  possible 
for  the  Father  not  to  have  heard  Him, — as  though  He  had 
first  obtained  this  power  to  call  Lazarus  from  his  grave, 
after  supplication, — had,  like  Elisha  (2  Kin.  iv.  33-35),  by 
dint  of  prayer  (cf.  Acts  ix.  40)  painfully  won  back  the  life 
which  had  departed;  whereas  the  power  was  most  truly 
his  own,  not  indeed  in  disconnexion  from  the  Father,  for 
what  He  saw  the  Father  do,  that  also  He  did  (John  v.  19, 
21) ;  but  in  this,  his  oneness  with  the  Father,  lay  for  Him 
the  power  of  doing  these  mighty  acts.'  Therefore  He 
explains,  evidently  not  any  more  in  a  voice  audible  by  all 
those  present,  but  so  that  his  disciples  might  hear  Him,  what 

^  Chrysostoin  (Ilotn.  Ixiv.  in  Joh.)  enters  at  large  upon  this  point. 
Waldonitus  observes:  Nihil  enim  aliud  his  verbis  quam  essentiaj  volun- 
tatisque  unitatem  siguificari.     Cf.  Ambrose,  De  Fide,  iii,  4, 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  441 

this  '  Father,  I  thank  Thee,''  meant,  and  why  it  was  spoken  : 

*  And  I  knew  thai  Thou  hcarest  Me  always  :  hut  because  of 
the  peoi^le  which  stand  by  I  said  it,  that  they  may  believe  that 
Thou  hast  sent  Me '  (cf.  i  Kin.  xviii.  36,  37).  For  them  it 
was  wholesome  :  they  should  thus  understand  that  He 
claimed  his  power  from  above,  and  not  from  beneath ;  that 
there  was  no  magic,  no  necromancy  here. 

Chrysostom  supposes  that  when  this  thanksgiving  prayer 
was  uttered,  Lazarus  was  already  reanimated  ;  but  this  is 
assuredly  a  mistake.  The  Son  renders  by  anticipation 
thanks  to  the  Father,  so  confident  is  He  that  He  too 
wields  the  keys  of  death  and  of  the  grave,  and  that  these 
will  give  up  their  prey  at  his  bidding,  that  He  too  can 
quicken  whom  He  will  (John  v.  21).  '  And  when  He  had 
thus  spoken.  He  cried  '  with  a  loud  voice,  Lazarus,  come 
forth'  (Mark  v.  41 ;  Luke  vii.  14;  viii.  54;  Acts  ix.  40). 
To  this  '  cry  with  a  loud  voice,''  ^  calling  the  things  which 
are  not  as  though  they  were  (Ezek.  xxxvii.  4),  and  heard 
through  all  the  chambers  of  death,  the  quickening  power 
is  everywhere  in  Scripture  ascribed.  Thus  at  John  v.  28, 
29  :  '  The  hour  is  coming,  in  the  which  aU  that  are  in  the 
graves  shall  hear  his  voice,  and  shall  come  forth ; '  and 
again  at  i  Thess.  iv.  16,  it  is  at  the  descent  of  the  Lord 

*  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  Archangel,' — which 
voice  is  his  own,  for  Scripture  knows  of  no  other  Archangel, 
— that  the  dead  m  Him  will  rise ;  while  *  the  last  trump ' 
(i  Cor.  15-52)  is  probably  this  same  voice  of  God,  sounding 
through  all  the  kingdom  of  death. 

*  And  he  that  was  dead  came  forth,^  hound  hand  and  foot 
with  grave-clothes,*^  and  his  face  was  hound  about  ivith  a 

^  This  Kprniya^fii;  which  is  strotiger  than  Kpa^tiv  (John  vii.  28  ;  xii.  44), 
is  nowhere  else  attributed  to  the  Lord :  but  see  Heb.  v.  7 ;  cf.  Matt.  xii. 

19  :   ohct  Kpavyaaii. 

^  Cyril  calls  it  GtonpiTrfg  k-m  i^antXiKuv  KsXfvrrfta,  Bernard:  Abvssus 
abyssum  vocat.  Abj'ssus  lumiuis  et  misericordiae  abyssum  mortis  et 
tenebrarum. 

^  Hilary  (De  Ttin.  vi.  §  33)  :  Xullo  inter^-allo  vocis  et  vita3. 

*  Knf>iai=ra  (sxoiy'ux  to.  bVTa(f)ia=^ok)ovia  (John  xix.  4o)  =  viucula  lineft 
(Tertullian). 


442  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

naplcln.'  Some,  in  their  zeal  for  multiplying  miracles, 
make  it  a  new  miracle,  a  wonder  witliin  a  wonder,'  as  St. 
Basil  calls  it,  that  Lazarus  so  bound  was  able  to  obey  the 
summons.  But  in  that  case  to  what  end  the  further  word, 
*  Loose  Mm,  and  let  Mm  go"?^  Probably  he  was  loosely 
involved  in  these  grave-clothes,  which  hindering  all  free 
action,  yet  did  not  hinder  motion  altogether  ;  or  possibly, 
in  accordance  with  the  Egyptian  ftishion,  every  limb  was 
wrapped  round  with  these  stripes  by  itself,  just  as  in  the 
mummies  each  separate  finger  has  sometimes  its  own 
wrapping. 

The  Gospel  narrative  is,  if  one  may  so  speak,  always 
epic,  never  idyllic ;  St.  John  therefore  leaves  us  to  imagine 
their  joy,  who  thus  beyond  all  expectation  received  back 
their  dead  from  the  grave ;  a  joy  which  so  few  have  shared 
among  all  the  mourners  of  all  times, 

'  Who  to  the  verge  have  followed  that  they  love, 
And  on  the  insuperable  threshold  stand ; 
With  cherished  names  its  speechless  calm  reprove, 
And  stretch  in  the  abyss  their  ungrasped  hand.' 

Not  attempting  to  picture  this,  he  proceeds  to  trace  the 
historic  significance  of  the  miracle,  the  permitted  link 
which  it  formed  in  that  chain  of  events,  which  should 

*  Bavi-ia  ti'  £au[iaTi  :  cf.  Ambrose,  De  Fid.  Res.  ii.  78  ;  and  so  Augustine 
(Enarr.  in  Ps.  ci.  21):  Processit  ille  vinctus'.  non  ergo  pedibus  propriis, 
sed  virtute  producentis. 

"^  Of  Lazarus  himself  we  have  but  one  further  notice  (John  xii.  2),  but 
that,  like  tlie  command  to  give  meat  to  the  revived  maiden  (Mark  v.  43  j, 
like  the  Lord's  own  participation  of  food  after  the  resurrection  (Luke 
xxiv.  42  ;  John  xxi.  13),  a  witness  against  anything  xaevGiy  phantastic  in 
his  rising  again.  He  is  generally  assumed  to  have  been  much  younger 
than  his  sisters;  one  tradition  mentioned  by  Epiphanius  makes  him  thirty 
years  old  at  this  time,  and  to  have  survived  for  thirty  years  more.  The 
traditions  of  his  later  life,  as  that  he  became  bishop  of  Marseilles,  rest 
upon  no  good  authority:  yet  there  is  one  circumstance  of  these  traditions 
worthy  of  record,  although  not  for  its  historic  worth, — that  the  first 
question  he  asked  the  Lord  after  he  was  come  back  from  the  grave,  was 
whether  he  should  have  to  die  again ;  and,  learning  that  it  must  needs 
be  so,  that  he  never  smiled  any  more.  I^azarus,  as  a  revenant,  is  often 
used  by  the  religious  romance-writers  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  vehicle  fox 


THE  RAISING    OF  LAZARUS.  443 

issue,  according  to  the  determinate  decree  and  counsel  of 
God,  in  the  atoning  death  of  the  Son  of  God  upon  the 
cross.  ^  Then  many  of  the  Jews  which  came  to  Mary,  and 
had  seen  the  things  which  Jesus  did,  believed  on  Him  ;  hut 
some  of  them  went  their  ways  to  the  Pharisees,  and  told  them 
what  things  Jesus  had  done.*  Origen  supposes  that  these 
last  went  with  a  good  intention,  as  having  that  now  to 
tell  which  even  the  Pharisees  themselves  could  no  longer 
resist,  which  must  win  them  also  to  the  acknowledgment 
that  this  was  the  Christ.  Yet  the  manner  in  which  this 
notice  is  introduced  fails  to  support  this  more  charitable 
construction  of  their  purpose.  St.  John  does  here  what 
he  does  evermore,  divides  the  light  from  the  darkness,  the 
belief  from  the  unbelief,  and  marks  the  progressive  growth 
of  the  one  and  of  the  other.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
how  frequently  he  does  the  same  elsewhere  ;  thus  compare 
vi.  66-6q  ;  vii.  1  2 ;  vii.  40-43  ;  vii.  47-52  ;  ix.  16  ;  x.  19-21. 
These  who  went  and  told  the  Pharisees  were  spectators  of 
the  miracle  who  on  one  plea  or  another  refused  to  be  con- 
vinced by  it  (Luke  xvi.  31),  and  who,  reporting  to  the 
professed  enemies  of  the  Lord  this  latest  and  most  im- 
posing Avork  of  his,  would  irritate  them  yet  more  against 
Him,'  would  make  them  feel  the  instant  need  of  effectually 
counterworking,  if  possible  putting  out  of  the  way,  one 
who  had  done,  or  seemed  to  do,  so  notable  a  work; 
St.  John,  it  will  be  observed,  joins  immediately  with  this 
report  to  the  Pharisees  a  new  and  increased  activity  in 
their  hostile  machinations  against  the  Lord. 

They  are   indeed  now   seriously  alarmed.     The}'   anti- 
cipate  the   effects   which    this    mighty   work  will    have 

their  conceptions  of  the  other  world,  lie  is  made  to  relate  -what  he  has 
seen  and  known,  just  as  the  Paniphylian  that  revived  is  used  hy  Plato  in 
the  Republic  for  the  same  purposes  (Wright,  St.  Patrick's  Purgatory, 
pp.  167-169).  There  is  a  very  interesting  and  a  singularly  ingenioiis 
article  upon  Lazarus  in  the  Diet,  of  the  Bible,  identifying  him  with  the 
young  man  that  had  great  possessions,  and  on  a  former  occasion  went 
away  from  the  Lord  sorrowful  (Matt.  xix.  22). 

*  £uthymius:   0<';;^  wi-  tov/iajoi  rt <,■,  aWa  Iui^uWovtiq  wq  y6t]ra. 

29 


444  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

upon  the  people — tlieir  anticipations,  as  we  learn  pre- 
sently, Trere  correct — (Jolin  xii.  lo,  ii,  17-19) ;  and  they 
gather  in  council  together  against  the  Lord  and  against 
his  Anointed.  They  do  not  pause  to  inquire  whether 
'  this  man,'  as  they  contemptuously  call  Him, — who,  even 
according  to  their  own  confession,  '  doeth  many  miracles ' 
(cf.  Acts  iv.  16),  may  not  be  doing  them  in  the  power  of 
God,  may  not  'be  indeed  the  promised  King  of  Israel. 
The  question  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  his  claims  seems 
never  to  enter  into  their  minds,  but  only  the  bearing 
which  the  acknowledgment  of  these  claims  will  have  on 
the  worldly  fortunes  of  their  order.  This  they  contemplate 
under  somewhat  a  novel  aspect :  'Ifwe  let  Him  thus  alone, 
all  men  will  believe  on  Him;  and  the  Romans  shall  come,  and 
take  away  both  our  place  and  nation.'  The  direct  con- 
nexion which  they  traced  between  the  recognition  of  Jesus 
as  the  Christ,  and  a  conflict  with  the  Eoman  power,  was 
probably  this.  The  people  will  acknowledge  Him  for  the 
Messiah ;  He  will  set  Himself  at  their  head,  or  they  by 
compulsion  will  make  Him  their  king  (John  vi.  15) ;  here- 
upon will  follow  an  attempt  to  throw  off  the  foreign 
yoke,  an  attempt  to  be  crushed  presently  by  the  superior 
power  of  Rome;  which  wiU  then  use  the  opportunity 
that  it  has  been  waiting  for  long,  and  will  make  a 
general  sweep,  taking  away  from  us  wholly  whatsoever 
survives  of  our  power  and  independence,  '  our  place  '  and 
nation.'  Or,  without  anticipating  an  actual  insurrection, 
they  may  have  assumed  that  the  mere  fact  of  aclniow- 
iedging  a  Messiah  would  arouse  the  jealousy  of  Rome, 

^  Toi'  T('nrov.  Many,  as  Clirysostom,  Theopliylact,  and  others,  under- 
stand by  tliis  tlieir  city.  But  the  Jews  had  much  more  probably  the  tem- 
ple in  their  thoughts.  This,  in  which  all  their  hopes  centred,  which  to 
them  was  the  middle  point  of  all,  would  naturally  be  uppermost  in  their 
minds,  while  to  the  city  we  nowhere  find  the  same  exaggerated  import- 
ance ascribed;  see  in  confarmation  z  Mace.  iii.  18;  v.  19;  Ps.  Ixxviii. 
7;  Ixxxiii.  4,  LXX;  Isai.  Ixiv.  10.  This  for  Origen  is  so  far  beyond 
all  question,  that,  as  it  seems  unconsciously,  for  toitov  he  substitutes 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  445 

would  be  accounted  an  act  of  rebellion,  to  be  visited  with 
tliese  extremest  penalties.'  How  sensitive  that  jealousy 
was,  bow  easily  alarmed,  we  have  a  thousand  proofs. 
'Art  Thou  the  King  of  the  Jews?'  (John  xviii.  33  ;  cf. 
Acts  xvi.  21 ;  xvii.  7,  8)  is  the  point  to  which  the  Roman 
governor  comes  at  once.  Augustine  stands  alone  in  a 
somewhat  different  interpretation — namely,  that  the  Jews 
were  already  meditating,  as  no  doubt  they  always  were, 
the  great  revolt  of  a  later  time,  and  discerned  plainly  that 
the  nerves  of  it  would  be  effectually  cut  by  the  spread  of 
the  doctrines  of  this  Prince  of  peace.  Where  should  they 
find  instruments  for  their  purpose,  if  many  of  the  fierce 
*  zealots '  (see  Acts  i.  1 3)  were  transformed  into  meek 
Apostles  ?  All  resistance  to  the  Roman  domination  would 
become  impossible  ;  and  these,  whensoever  they  chose, 
would  come  and  rob  them  of  whatever  remained  of  their 
national  existence.^  We  shall  do  best,  however,  in  ad- 
hering to  the  more  usual  interpretation.  The  question 
will  still  remain,  Did  they  who  urged  this,  indeed  feel  the 
dread  which  they  professed  ?  or  did  they  only  pretend  to 
fear  these  consequences  from  the  ministry  of  Christ,  if 
suffered  to  remain  uninterrupted ;  and  that,  on  account  of 
a  party  in  the  Sanhedrim  (see  John  ix.  16),  who  could 
only  be  thus  won  over  to  the  extreme  measures  now 
meditated  against  Him  ?  The  Greek  expositors  in  general 
suppose  that  they  did  but  feign  this  alarm  ;  I  must  needs 
believe  that  herein  they  were  sincere ;  however,  besides 
this  alarm,  there  may  have  been  deeper  and  more  malignant 
motives  at  work  in  their  minds. 

Probably  many  half-measures  had  been  proposed  by  one 

*  Corn,  a  Lapide :  Si  omnes  credant  Jesum  esse  Messiam,  regem  Judaeo- 
nim,  irritabuntur  contra  nos  Romani  Judfese  domini,  quod  nobis  novum 
regem  et  Messiam,  puta  Jesum,  creaverimus,  ac  a  Caesare  Tiberio  ad  eum 
defecerimus ;  quare  armati  venient  et  vastabunt  et  perdent  Hierosolymam 
et  J  udfeam,  cum  tota  Judaeorum  gente  et  republica. 

*  In  Eo.  Joh.  tract,  xlix, :  Hoc  autem  timuerunt,  ne  si  omnes  in 
Christum  crederent,  nemo  remaneret,  qui  adversus  Romanos  civitatem 
Dei  templumque  defenderet. 


44^  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

member  and  anotlier  of  the  Sanhedrim  for  arresting  tlie 
growing  inclination  of  the  people  to  recognize  Jesus  as 
the  Christ,  and  had  been  debated  backward  and  forward  ; 
such  as  hindering  them  from  hearing  Him ;  proclaiming 
anew,  as  had  been  done  before,  that  any  should  be  ex- 
communicated who  should  confess  Him  to  be  Christ 
(John  ix.  22).  But  these  measures  had  been  already  tried, 
and  had  proved  insufficient ;  and  in  that  *  Ye  know  nothing 
at  all '  of  Caiaphas,  we  have  the  voice  of  the  bold  bad  man, 
silencing,  with  ill-suppressed  contempt,  his  weak  and 
vacillating  colleagues,  who  could  see  the  danger,  while 
they  yet  shrunk,  though  not  for  the  truth's  sake,  from 
the  one  step  which  promised  to  remove  it.  *  Nor  consider 
that  it  is  expedient  for  us  that  one  Tnan  should  die  for  the 
people,  and  that  the  whole  nation  perish  not.'  Guilty  or 
not  guilty,  this  man,  who  threatens  to  imperil  the  whole 
nation,  and,  whether  He  Himself  means  it  or  no,  to  com- 
promise it  with  the  Roman  power,  must  be  taken  out  of 
the  way. 

Caiaphas,^  who  dares  thus  to  come  to  the  point,  and  to 
speak  the  unuttered  thought  of  many  in  that  assembly, 
was  a  Sadducee  (Acts  v.  17).  Hengstenberg  thinks  we  may 
trace  in  this  utterance  of  his  the  roughness  *  which  Jo- 
sephus  ascribes  to  the  Sadducees  as  compared  with  the 
Pharisees.  St.  John  describes  him  as  *  being  the  High  Priest 
that  same  year,'  and  repeats  the  same  phrase  ver.  51, 
and  again  xviii.  1 3  ;  from  which  some  have  concluded  that 
whoever  wrote  this  Gospel  accounted  the  High  Priesthood  a 
yearly  office ;  and  have  then  deduced  the  further  conclusion, 
that  since  it  was  impossible  for  St.  John  to  have  fallen  into 
this  mistake,  it  was  therefore  impossible  that  he  could  be 
the  author  of  this  Gospel.   Certainly,  any  one  who  asserted 

^  His  proper  name  was  Joseph.  That  other  name  by  which  he  is  better 
known  he  probably  assumed  with  his  assumption  of  the  High  Priesthood 
(Josephus,  Antt.  xviii.  2.  2 ;  xviii.  4.  2).  The  High  Priests  were  wont, 
on  their  election,  to  change  their  name,  as  the  Popes  do  now. 

'  'AypiwTtpoi'f  £.  J,  ii.  8.  14. 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  4+7 

this  would  therein  disj^lay  an  ignorance  with  which  it 
would  be  absurd  to  credit  the  Apostle.  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  High  Priesthood  at  this  time  was  by  the  Romans 
as  rilely  prostituted  as,  under  very  similar  circumstances, 
the  Patriarch's  throne  at  Constantinople  is  now  by  the 
Turks.  It  was  their  policy  that  this,  the  middle  point  of 
Jewish  national  life,  should  be  weakened  and  discredited 
as  much  as  possible.  The  office  was  by  them  shifted  from 
one  to  another  so  rapidly,  as  sometimes  to  remain  with 
the  same  holder  even  for  less  than  a  year;  but  it  was 
still,  according  to  its  institution,  a  lifelong  office,  was 
retained  by  many,  if  not  for  a  lifetime,  yet  for  many  years ; 
as  by  Caiaphas  himself,  who  held  it  for  more  than  ten 
years.*  But  they  must  be  hardly  set  to  find  arguments 
against  the  authenticity  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  who  have 
recourse  to  this.  If  some  historian  were  to  write  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  President  of  the  United  States 
that  same  year  in  which  the  great  civil  war  broke  out, 
would  any  be  justified  in  imputing  to  him  the  mistake  that 
the  Presidency  was  a  yearly  office,  or  in  arguing  that  the 
writer  could  not  have  been  an  American  living  at  the 
time,  and  to  whom  the  ordinary  sources  of  information 
were  open  ?  And  who  has  a  right  to  ascribe  to  the  words 
of  St.  John  any  further  meaning  than  that  Caiaphas  was 
High  Priest  then^  whether  he  had  been  so  before,  or 
should  be  after,  was  nothing  to  his  present  purpose.  It  is 
significant  to  the  Evangelist  that  he  was  this  when  he 
spake  these  words,  these  obtaining  thus  a  weight  and 
importance  which  else  they  would  not  have  possessed. 
They  were  not  the  words  of  Caiaphas  ;  they  were  the  words 
of  the  High  Priest :  ^  *  This  spake  he  not  of  himself ;  hut 
being  High  Priest  that  year,  he  prophesied  that  Jesus  should 

^  lie  was  the  fifth  High  Priest  whom  Valerius  Gratus  during  a  procu- 
ratorship  of  not  more  than  eleven  years,  had  appointed.  Four  othew 
had  ill  rapid  succession  been  deposed  by  him  (Josephus,  Antt.  xviii.  2.  Cj 
Eusebius,  //.  £.  i.  10). 

^  Bengel:  Ubique  occurrit  Johannes  interpretation!  sinistras. 


448  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

die  for  that  nation.''  This  oracular,  even  prophetic,  charac- 
ter which  the  words  thus  obtained  requires  some  explana- 
tion. That  a  bad  man  should  utter  words  which  were  so 
overruled  by  God  as  to  become  prophetic,  would  of  itself 
be  no  difficulty.  He  who  used  a  Balaam  to  declare  that  a 
Star  should  come  out  of  Jacob  and  a  Sceptre  rise  out  of 
Israel  (Num.  xxiv.  17),  might  have  used  Caiaphas  to  fore- 
announce  other  truths  of  his  kingdom.^  Nor  is  there  any 
difficulty  in  such  unconscious  prophecies  as  this  evidently 
is.^  How  many  prophecies  of  a  like  kind, — most  of  them, 
it  is  true,  rather  in  act  than  in  word, — meet  us  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  crucifixion  !  What  was  the  title  over 
our  blessed  Lord,  '  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  King  of  the 
Jews,'  but  another  such  scornful  and  contemptuous,  yet 
most  veritable,  prophecy  ?  Or  what,  again,  the  purjDle  robe 
and  the  homage,  the  sceptre  and  the  crown  ?  The  Roman 
soldiers  did  not  mean  to  fulfil  the  22nd  Psalm  when  they 
parted  Christ's  garments  among  them,  and  cast  lots 
upon  his  vesture ;  nor  the  Jewish  mockers,  the  Chief 
Priests  and  Scribes,  when  they  wagged  their  heads  and 
spoke  those  taunting  words  against  Him ;  but  they  did  so 
not  the  less.  And  in  the  typical  rehearsals  of  the  crowning 
catastrophe  in  the  drama  of  God's  providence,  how  many 
a  Nimrod  and  Pharaoh  and  Antiochus,  Antichrists  that  do 
not  quite  come  to  the  birth,  have  prophetic  parts  allotted 
to  them,  which  they  play  out,  unknowing  what  they  do  '•> 


^  Augustine,  adducing  this  prophecy,  exclaims  (^Serm.  cccxv.  i): 
Magna  vis  est  veritatis.  Oderunt  veritatem  homines,  et  veritatem  pro- 
phetant  nescientes.  Non  agunt,  sed  agitur  de  illis.  Calvin  :  Fuit  ergo 
tunc  quasi  bilinguis  Caiaphas.  Impium  enim  et  crudele  negaiidi  Chri- 
stum consilium,  quod  in  animo  conceptum  hahuit,  evomuit;  Deus  vero 
linguani  ejus  alio  flexit,  ut  sub  ambiguis  verbis  vaticinium  simul  proferret. 
Voluit  autem  Deus  ex  sede  pontificiii  manare  divinum  oraculum. 

'  It  exactly  answers  as  such  to  the  oiiiiita  of  Roman  superstition,  in 
which  words  spoken  by  one  person  in  a  lower  meaning  are  taken  up  by 
anotlier  in  a  higher,  and  by  him  claimed  to  be  prophetic  of  that.  Cicero 
(De  Diriit.  i.  4.6)  gives  examples ;  these,  too,  resting  on  the  faith  that 
men's  words  are  ruled  by  a  higher  power  than  their  own. 


THE  EAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  449 

for  sucli  is  the  divine  irony ;  so,  in  a  very  deep  sense  of 
the  words, 

Ludit  in  humanis  divina  potentia  rebus.^ 

But  the  perplexing  circumstance  is  the  attributing  to 
Caiaphas,  because  he  was  High  Friest,  these  prophetic 
words— for  prophetic  the  Evangelist  plainly  pronounces 
them  to  be,  and  all  attempts  to  rid  his  words  of  this  inten- 
tion, and  to  destroy  the  antithesis  between  '  speaJcing  of 
himself  and  'prophesying'  are  idle.'  There  is  no  need, 
however,  to  suppose  (and  this  greatly  diminishes  the 
embarrassment)  that  he  meant  to  affirm  this  to  have  been 
a  power  inherent  in  the  High  Priesthood ;  tliat  the  High 
Priest,  as  such,  must  prophesy ;  but  only  that  God,  the 
extorter  of  those  unwilling,  or  even  unconscious,  prophecies 
from  wicked  men,  ordained  this  further,  that  he  in  whom 
the  whole  theocracy  culminated,  who  was  '  the  Prince  of 
the  people'  (Acts  xxiii.  5),  for  such,  till  another  High 
Priest  had  sanctified  Himself, — and  his  moral  character 
was  nothing  to  the  point, — Caiaphas  truly  was, — should, 
because  he  bore  this  office,  be  the  organ  of  this  memorable 
prophecy  concerning  Christ,  and  the  meaning  and  end  of 
his  deatli.^ 

*  We  have  an  example  of  this  in  tlie  very  name  Caiaphas,  which  is 
only  another  form  of  Cephas,  being  derived  from  the  same  Hebrew 
word.  lie  was  meant  to  be  what  Eusebius,  with  reference  to  the 
peace-making  activity  of  Irenseus  (t/or/iviioi)  in  the  Church,  calls  him, 
(ttpMrv.ioc.  He  should  have  been  *  the  Rock ; '  here  too,  as  in  names  like 
Stephen's  (Tree  rti-dc,  the  first  winner  of  the  martyr's  cro?t'«),  the  nomen 
et  07nen  was  to  have  held  good.  And  such,  had  he  been  true  to  his  posi- 
tion, had  the  Jewish  economy  past  easily  and  without  a  struggle  into 
that  for  which  it  was  the  preparation,  he  would  naturally  have  been  ;  the 
first  in  the  one  would  have  been  first  in  the  other.  But  as  it  was,  he  bore 
this  name  but  in  mockery ;  he  was  the  rock  indeed,  but  the  rock  on  which, 
not  the  Church  of  Christ,  but  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  was  built. — In  the 
Syrian  Church  there  are  curious  legends  of  the  after  life  of  Caiaphas,  and 
his  conversion  to  the  faith  (Thilo,  Cod.  Apocryphiis,  p.  xxix.). 

*  Wolf  (Curo',  in  loc.)  gives  some  of  these. 

*  Vitringa  (Obss.  Sac.  vi.  11)  :  Visus  est  Caiaphas  Joanni  fotidicum  et 
ominosum  quid  proferre.  Et  vere  sententia  ejus  hujusmodi  est,  ut  altio- 
rem  aliquem  sensum  condat Supponit  igitur  Apostolus  non  fuisse 


f53  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

What  follows,  ^ And  not  for  that  nation^  onlyy  hut  that 
also  He  should  gather  together  in  one  the  children  of  God 
that  were  scattered  abroad,'  is  not  a  meaning  legitimately 
involved  in  the  words  of  Caiaphas,  but  is  added  by  St. 
John,  careful  to  hinder  that  limitation  of  the  benefits  of 
Christ's  death,  which  otherwise  they  might  seem  to  involve. 
So  grave  a  misinterpretation,  now  that  the  words  had  been 
adopted  as  more  than  man's,  it  was  well  worth  while  to 
avert.  Caiaphas  indeed  prophesied  that  Jesus  should  die 
for  that  nation,  and  (St.  John  himself  adds)  He  indeed  died 
not  for  that  nation  only,  but  also  for  the  gathering  in 
one  of  all  the  children  of  God  scattered  abroad  through 
the  whole  world  (cf.  Isai.  xlix.  6 ;  Ivi.  6-8).  Elsewhere  he 
has  declared  the  same  truth  :  '  He  is  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins ;  and  not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  sins  of 
the  whole  world  '  (i  John  ii.  2).  Not  the  law,  as  the  Jews 
supposed,  but  the  atoning  death  of  Christ,  should  bind 
together  all  men  into  one  fellowshij) :  '  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up 
from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto  Me.'  The  law  was 
no  bond  of  union,  rather  a  wall  of  separation.  It  was  only 
that  death,  and  the  life  which  sprung  out  of  that   death, 

alienum  aPontifice  Hebi-feorum  illo  tempore  Trporfiijrevfti',  oracula  fundere, 
et  nescium  etiani  mandata  Numinis  profari.  A  Pontifice,  inquara,  hoc 
solum  respectu  Deo  comraendabili,  quod  Pontifex  esset ;  cum  ceteroquia 
personse  ejus  nulla  essent  merita,  quae  facere  poterant,  ut  Deus  illius 
rationem  baberet.  Sed  cum  Deus  Pontifices  constituisset  in  ilia,  gente, 
publicos  suae  legis  voluntatisque  interpretes,  etiamsi  eos  in  universum 
propterea  neutiquam  exemisset  omni  errore  judicii  in  re  religionis ; 
placuit  illi  Caiaphse  Pontificis  potius  quam  ullius  alterius  Assessoris 
linguam  in  dicenda  sententia  ita  moderari,  ut,  proeter  animi  sui  consilium, 
de  necessitate  et  vero  fine  mortis  Christi  sapienter  loqueretur,  Teramque 
ederet  confes&ionem,  ac  si  non  tanquam  Caiaphas  sententiam  pronun- 
ciasset. — On  the  special  illumination  vouchsafed  to  the  High  Priest  as 
bearer  of  the  ephod,  see  Bahr,  Si/mbolik,  vol.  ii.  p.  136. 

^  Very  remarkable  in  St.  John's  taking  up  of  the  words  of  Caiaphas  is 
the  substitution  upon  his  part  of  ifvoc  for  the  Xo^t  which  the  other  had 
used.  The  Jews  were  still  the  Xnoc  in  the  ej'es  of  the  High  Priest ;  not 
80  in  those  of  St.  John.  This  title  had  been  forfeited  by  them.  There 
■vvas  another  Xoof  dow,  even  that  which  had  once  been  oi'  Xnot'  ('  Pet.  ii. 
10;  Pev.  x'/lii.  4.;  ixi.  3);  and  thei/ were  henceforth  lufc  an  itiyv^fOS 
the  other  iOrn  of  the  world. 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  451 

wliich  could  knit  together.  We  have  at  Ephes.  ii.  13-22, 
St.  Paul's  commentary  on  these  words  of  St.  John.  '  The 
children  of  God '  have  this  name  by  anticipation  here  ;  they 
are  those  predestinated  to  this ;  who,  not  being  disobedient 
to  the  heavenly  calling,  should  hereafter  become  his  children 
by  adoption  and  grace. ^  So  too,  in  a  parallel  passage, 
Christ  says,  '  Other  sheep  I  have,  which  are  not  of  this 
fold'  (John  X.  16),  others,  that  is,  which  should  be  here- 
after his  sheep  ;  He  has  '  much  people  '  in  Corinth  (Acts 
xviii.  10),  many,  that  is,  who  shall  be  hereafter  obedient 
to  the  faith.  In  a  subordinate  sense  they  might  be 
termed  '  children  of  God  '  already  ;  they  were  the  nobler 
natures,  although  now  run  wild,  among  the  heathen,  the 
*  sons  of  peace,'  that  should  receive  the  message  of  peace 
(Luke  X.  6)  ;  in  a  sense,  *  of  the  truth,'  even  while 
they  were  sharing  much  of  the  falsehood  roQnd  them  j  so 
far  '  of  the  truth,'  that,  when  the  King  of  truth  came  and 
lifted  up  his  banner  in  the  world,  they  gladly  ranged 
themselves  under  it  (John  xviii.  37 ;  cf.  Luke  viii.  15 ; 
John  iii.  19-21). 

In  pursuance  of  this  advice  of  Caiaphas  it  came  now  to  a 
solemn  resolution  on  the  part  of  the  Sanhedrim,  that  Jesus 
should  die.  '  Then  from,  that  day  forth  they  tooh  counsel 
together  for  to  put  Him  to  death.^  There  had  been  purposes 
and  schemes  among  '  the  Jews,'  that  is,  the  Pharisees  and 
their  adherents,  to  put  Him  to  death  before  (Matt.  xii.  14; 
John  V.  16.  18  ;  vii.  i,  19,  25  ;  viii.  37)  ;  but  it  was  now 
the  formal  resolution  of  the  chief  Council  of  the  nation.^ 
All  that  now  remained  was  to  devise  the  fittest  means  for 
bringing  this  about.  '  Jesus,  therefore,  walked  no  more 
openly  among  the  Jews  (cf.  Dent,  xxxii.  20),  hut  went  thence 
unto  a  country  near  to  the  wilderness,'  the  wilderness,  that 
is,  which  is  mentioned  Josh.  viii.  15,  24  ;  xvi.  i  ;  xviii.  12 ; 

'  Augustine,  Ep.  clxxxvii.  1 2. 

"  Cornelius  a  Lapide :  Vita  Lazari,  mors  ChristL 


452  THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

— '  iyito  a  city  called  Ephraim,^  and  there  continued  with  his 
disciples,' — not  indeed  for  long,  for  '  the  Jews'  Passover  was 
nigh  at  hand,'  and  He,  tlie  very  Paschal  Lamb  of  that 
Passover,  must  not  be  wanting  at  the  feast. 

In  the  ancient  Church  there  was  ever  found,  besides  the 
literal,  an  allegorical  interpretation  of  this  and  the  two 
other  miracles  of  the  like  kind.  As  Christ  raises  those 
that  are  naturally  dead,  so  also  He  quickens  them  that  are 
spiritually  dead;  and  the  history  of  this  miracle,  as  it 
abounds  the  most  in  details,  so  was  it  the  most  fruitful  field 
on  which  the  allegorists  exercised  their  skill.  Here  they 
found  the  whole  process  of  the  sinner's  restoration  from  the 
death  of  sin  to  a  perfect  spiritual  life  shadowed  forth  ;  and 
these  allegories  are  often  rich  in  manifold  adaptations  of 
the  history,  as  beautiful  as  they  are  ingenious,  to  that 
which  it  is  made  to  declare.^  Nor  was  this  all ;  for  these 
three  raisings  from  the  dead  were  often  contemplated  not 
apart,  not  as  each  portraying  exactly  the  same  truth  ;  but 
in  their  connexion  with  one  another,  as  setting  forth  one 
and  the  same  truth  under  different  and  successive  aspects. 
It  was  observed  how  we  have  the  record  of  three  persons 
that  were  restored  to  life, — one,  the  daughter  of  Jairus, 
being  raised /rom  the  bed ;  another,  the  son  of  the  widow, 
from  the  bier;  and  lastly,  Lazarus /rom  the  grave.  And  in 
the  same  way  Christ  raises  to  newness  of  life  sinners  of  all 
degrees ;  not  only  those  who  have  just  fallen  away  from 
truth  and  holiness,  like  the  maiden  who  had  just  expired, 
and  in  whom,  as  with  a  taper  newly  extinguished,  it  was 
by  comparison  easy  to  kindle  a  vital  flame  anew ;  but  He 
raises  also  them  who,  like  the  young  man  borne  out  to  his 

'  This  Ephraim  is  considered  identical  with  that  mentioned  at 
a  Chron.  xiii.  19  ;  seeRitter's  Palestine,  Engl.  Transl.  vol.  iv.  p.  225  ;  and 
Robinson's  Biblical  Researches,  vol.  i.  p.  444.  It  is  called  in  Joseph  us 
a  7roX.\i'ini'  (i?.  J.  iv.  9.  9). 

'  See,  for  instance,  Augustine,  Qucsst.  Ixxxiii.  qu.  65  j  Bernard,  De 
Assum.  Svrm.  iv. 


THE  RAISING   OF  LAZARUS.  453 

burial,  have  been  some  little  while  dead  in  their  trespasses. 
Nor  has  He  even  yet  exhausted  his  power  ;  for  He  quickens 
them  also  who,  like  Lazarus,  have  lain  long  festering  in 
their  sins,  as  in  the  corruption  of  the  grave,  who  wore  not 
merely  dead,  but  buried, — with  the  stone  of  evil  customs 
and  evil  habits  laid  to  the  entrance  of  their  tomb,  and 
seeming  to  forbid  all  egress  thence.'  Even  this  stone  He 
rolls  away,  and  bids  them  to  come  forth,  loosing  the  bands 
of  their  sins^  so  that  presently  they  are  sitting  down  with 
the  Lord  at  that  table,  there  where  there  is  not  the  foul 
odour  of  the  grave,  but  where  the  whole  house  is  full  of  the 
sweet  fragrance  of  the  ointment  of  Christ  (John  xii.  1-3). 
All  this  Donne  has  well  expressed :  '  If  I  be  dead  within 
doors  (If  I  have  sinned  in  my  heart),  why  suscitavit  in 
domo,  Christ  gave  a  resurrection  to  the  ruler's  daughter 
■within  doors,  in  the  house.  If  I  be  dead  in  the  gate  (If  I 
have  sinned  in  the  gates  of  my  soul),  in  my  eyes,  or  ears, 
or  hands,  in  actual  sins,  why  suscitavit  in  porta,  Christ  gave 
a  resurrection  to  the  young  man  at  the  gate  of  Nain.  If  T 
be  dead  in  the  grave  (in  customary  and  habitual  sins),  why 

^  Gregory  the  Great  {Moral,  xxii.  15):  Yeni  foras;  ut  niniirum  homo 
in  pficcatn  suo  mortuus,  et  per  molem  malse  consuetudinis  jam  sepultus, 
quia  intra  conscieutiam  suam  absconsus  jacet  per  nequitiam,  a  semetipso 
foras  exeat  per  coufessionem.  Mortuo  enim,  Veui  foras,  dicitur,  ut  ab 
excusatione  atque  occultatione  peccati  ad  accusationem  suam  ore  proprio 
exire  provocetur  (2  Sam.  xii.  13).  Thus  too  Hildebert,  in  his  sublime 
hymn,  De  SS.  Trinitate  (see  my  Sacred  Latin  Podry) : 

Extra  portara  jam  delatum,  Jube,  lapis  revolvetur, 

Jam  foetentem,  tumulatum,  Jube,  vitta  dirumpetur. 

Vitta  ligat,  lapis  urget;  Exiturus  nescit  moras, 

Sed  si  jubes,  hie  resurget.  Postquam  clamas,  Exi  foras. 

A  fine,  sermon  or  homily  in  Massillon's  Careme  is  just  the  unf<ildiug  of 
these  lines. 

^  The  stone,  for  Augustine,  is  the  law  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  xlix.)  :  Quid 
est  ergo,  Lapidem  removete  ?  Littera  occidens,  quasi  lapis  est  premens. 
Removete,  inquit,  lapidem.  Removete  legis  pondus  gratiam  priedicate. 
^  Loo'<e  him,  and  let  him  yo^  he  refers  to  release  from  Church  censures  ;  it 
was  Christ's  word  which  quickened  the  dead,  who  yet  used  the  mini- 
stration of  men  to  restore  entire  freedom  of  action  to  him  whom  He  had 
quickened  {Enarr.  in  Ps.  ci.  21  j  Ser7n,  xcviii.  6):  Hie  suscitavit  mor- 
tuum,  illi  solverunt  ligatum. 


454  THE  HAISING   OF  LAZARUS. 

suscitavU  in  sejpulcro,  Christ  gave  a  resurrection  to  Lazarus 
in  the  grave  too.'^ 

*  The  other  raisinps  from  the  dead  nowhere  afford  subjects  to  early 
Christian  Art ;  but  this  often,  and  in  all  its  stages.  Sometimes  Martha 
kneels  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  ;  sometimes  the  Lord  touches  with  his  won- 
der-staff the  head  of  Lazarus,  who  is  placed  upright  (which  is  a  mistake, 
and  a  transfer  of  Egyptian  customs  to  Judaea),  and  rolled  up  as  a  mummy 
(which  was  nearly  correct),  in  a  niche  of  the  grotto ;  sometimes  he  is 
coming  forth  at  tlie  word  of  the  Lord  (Miinter,  SinnbVder  d,  Alt.  Christ. 
vol.  ii.  p.  98). — From  a  sermon  of  Asterius  we  learn  that  it  was  a  custom 
in  his  time,  and  Chrysostom  tells  us  it  was  the  same  among  the  wealthy 
Byzantines,  to  have  this  and  other  miracles  of  our  Lord  woven  on  their 
garments,  '  Here  mayest  thou  see,'  says  Asterius,  '  the  marriage  in  Ga- 
lilee and  the  waterpots,  the  impotent  man  that  carried  his  bed  on  his 
shoulders,  the  blind  man  that  was  healed  with  clay,  the  woman  that  had 
an  issue  of  blood  and  touched  the  hem  of  his  garment,  the  awakened 
Lazarus ;  and  with  this  they  count  themselves  pious,  and  to  wear  gar- 
ments well-pleasing  to  God.' 


40    THE  OPENING   OF  THE  EYES  OF  TWO  BLIND 
MEN  NEAR  JERICHO. 

Matt.  xx.  29-34;  Mark  x.  46-52;  Luke  xviii.  35-43- 

THE  adjusting  of  the  several  records  of  this  miracle  has 
put  the  ingenuity  of  harmonists  to  the  stretch.  St. 
Matthew  commences  his  report  of  it  as  follows  :  *  And  as 
they  departed  from  JericJio,  a  great  rnultitude  followed  Him. 
And  behold,  two  blind  men,  sitting  by  the  wayside,  when  they 
heard  that  Jesxis  passed  by,  cried  out,  saying.  Have  mercy  on 
us,  0  Lord,  Thou  Son  of  David.'  Thus,  according  to  him, 
the  Lord  is  departing  from  Jericho,  and  the  petitioners 
are  two.  St.  Luke  appears  at  first  sight  to  contradict 
both  these  statements  ;  for  him  the  healed  is  but  one ;  and 
Christ  effects  his  cure  at  his  coming  nigh  to  the  city. 
St.  Mark  occupies  a  middle  place,  .holding  in  part  with 
one  of  his  fellow  Evangelists,  in  part  with  the  other ;  with 
St.  Luke  in  naming  but  one  who  was  healed ;  with 
St.  Matthew  in  placing  the  miracle,  not  at  the  entering 
into,  but  the  going  out  from,  Jericho ;  so  that  the  three 
narratives  in  a  way  as  perplexing  as  it  is  curious  cross 
and  interlace  one  another.  To  escape  all  such  difficulties 
as  the  synoptic  Gospels  present  us  here,  there  is  the  ready 
suggestion  always  at  hand,  that  the  sacred  historians  are 
recording  different  events,  and  that  therefore  there  is 
really  no  difficulty ;  and  nothing  to  reconcile.  But  in  fact 
we  do  not  thus  evade,  we  only  exchange,  our  embarrassment. 
Accepting  this  solution,  we  must  believe  that  in  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  of  Jericho,  our  Lord  was  thrice 
besought  in  almost  the  same  words  by  blind  beggars  on 


4-56  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES    OF 

the  wayside  for  mercy  ; — that  on  all  three  occasions  thera 
was  a  multitude  accompanying  Him,  who  sought  to  silence 
the  voices  of  the  claimants,  but  only  caused  them  to  cry 
the  more ; — that  in  each  case  Jesus  stood  still  and  de- 
manded what  they  wanted ; — that  in  each  case  they  made 
the  same  reply  in  very  nearly  the  same  words ; — and  a 
great  deal  more.^  All  this  is  so  unnatural,  so  unlike 
anything  in  actual  life,  so  unlike  the  infinite  variety  which 
the  incidents  of  the  Gospels  present,  that  for  myself  I 
should  prefer  almost  any  explanation  to  this. 

The  three  apparently  discordant  accounts  of  this  miracle, 
no  one  of  them  entirely  agreeing  with  any  other,  can  at 
once  be  reduced  to  two  by  that  rule,  which  in  all  recon- 
ciliations of  parallel  histories  must  be  applied,  namely, 
that  the  silence  of  one  narrator  is  in  itself  no  contradiction 
of  the  statement  of  another ;  thus  the  second  "^  and  third 
Evangelist,  making  mention  of  one  blind  man,  do  not 
contradict  St.  Matthew,  who  mentions  two.  There  remains 
only  the  circumstance  that  by  one  Evangelist  the  healing  is 
placed  at  the  Lord's  entering  into  the  city,  by  the  others 
at  his  going  out.  This  is  no  sufficient  ground  to  justify  a 
duplication  of  the  fact ;  and  Bengel,  as  I  must  needs 
believe,  with  his  usual  happy  tact,  has  selected  the  right 
reconciliation  of  the  difficulty  ;^  namely,  that  one  cried  to 

^  Some  in  old  times  and  new  Lave  thouglit  themselves  bound  in  to 
this  conclusion : — thus  Augustine  (De  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  65)  ;  Lightfoot 
(^Harmony  of  the  Nero  Testament,  sect.  69);  and  Greswell.  On  the  other 
hand,  Theophylact,  Chrysostom,  Maldonatus,  Grotius,  have  with  more  or 
less  confidence  maintained  that  we  have  here  the  same  event. 

^  Augustine  (De  Cons.  Evang.  ii.  65):  Procul  dubio  itaque  Bartimreus 
iste  Timsei  filius  ex  aliqua  magna  felicitate  dejectus,  notissimns  et  famo- 
sissimfe  miserire  fuit,  quod  non  solum  ctecus,  verum  etiam  mendicus  sede- 
bat.  Hinc  est  ergo  quod  ipsum  solum  voluit  commemorare  Marcus, 
cujus  illuminatio  tam  claram  famara  huic  miraculo  comparavit,  quam 
erat  illius  nota  calamitas.     Cf.  Qucest.  Evang.  ii.  48. 

*  Bengel:  Marcus  unumcommemoratBartim3eum,insigniorem  (k.  46), 
eundemque  Lucas  (xviii.  35)  innuit,  qui  transponendse  historise  occasio- 
nem  exinde  habuit,  quod  cjecorum  alter,  Jesu  Hierichuntem  intrante,  in 
via  notitiam  divini  hujus  medici  acquisivit.  Salvator  dum  apud  Zac- 
chjBum  pranderet,  vel  pernoctaret  potius,  Bartimseo  ccecorum  alter,  quern 


TWO  BLIND  MEN  NEAR  JERICHO.  457 

Him  as  He  drew  near  to  the  city,*  whom  yet  He  cured  not 
then,  but  on  the  morrow  at  his  going  out  of  the  city  cured 
h.im  together  with  the  other,  to  whom  in  the  mean  while 
lie  had  joined  himself.  St.  Matthew  will  then  relate  by 
anticipation,  as  is  not  uncommon  with  all  historians,  the 
whole  of  the  event  where  he  first  introduces  it,  rather 
than,  by  cutting  it  in  two  halves,  and  deferring  the  con- 
clusion, preserve  a  more  painful  accuracy,  yet  lose  the 
effect  which  the  complete  history  related  at  a  breath  would 
possess. 

In  the  cry  with  which  these  blind  men  sought  to  attract 
the  notice  and  the  pity  of  the  Lord  there  lay  on  their  part 
a  recognition  of  his  dignity  as  the  Messiah  ;  for  this  name, 
'  Son  of  David,''  was  the  popular  designation  of  the  great 
expected  Prophet  (Matt.  ix.  27 ;  xxi.  9 ;  xxii.  42 ;  cf. 
Ezek.  xxxiv.  23,  24).  There  was  thus  on  their  part  a 
double  confession  of  faith  ;  a  confession  first  that  He  could 
heal  them,  and  secondly,  not  merely  as  a  prophet  from 
God,  but  as  the  Prophet,  as  the  one  at  whose  coming  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  should  be  opened,  and  the  ears  of  the 
deaf  unstopped  (Isai.  xxix.  18;  xxxv.  5).  In  the  case  of 
the  man  blind  from  his  birth  (John  ix.)  we  have  the  same 
confessions,  but  following,  and  not  preceding,  the  cure, 
and  with  intervals  between ;  so  that  first  he  acknowledges 
Him  as  a  prophet  (ver.  17),  and  only  later  as  the  Christ 
(ver.  38).  Here  the  explanation  has  been  sometimes  found 
of  what  follows :  '  The  multitude  rebuked  them,  because  they 
would  not  hold  their  peace : '  as  though  tiiey  grudged  to 
hear  given  to  Jesus  titles  of  honour,  which  they  were  not 

Matthaeus   adjungit,  interim   associatus    est.     Maldonatua  had  already 
fallen  upon  the  same  reconciliation. 

1  Grotius  will  have  it  that  St.  Luke's  *'»-  ri^  iyyiZttv  here  need  not,  and 
does  not,  mean,  When  He  was  drawing  near  to,  hut,  When  He  was  in  the 
neiyhbourhuod  of, — and  that  this  his  nearness  to  the  city  was  that  of  one 
who  had  just  departed /ro?/i,  not  of  one  who  was  now  approaching  to,  it. 
But,  granting  that  this  were  admitted,  the  notice  of  Zaccheus  which  fol- 
lows is  irreconcileable  with  the  assumption  that  Christ  was  now  quittinn 
Jericho. 


458  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES   OF 

themselves  prepared  to  accord  Him.^  We  should  then 
have  here  a  parallel  to  Luke  xix.  39  ;  only  that  there  the 
Pharisees  would  have  Christ  Himself  to  rebuke  those  that 
were  glorifying  Him,  while  here  the  multitude  take  the 
rebuking  into  their  own  hands.  But  while  it  was  quite  in 
the  spirit  of  the  envious  malignant  Pharisees  to  be  vexed 
with  those  Messianic  salutations  ;  '  Blessed  be  the  King, 
that  Cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord ;  *  these  well-meaning 
multitudes,  rude  and  in  the  main  spiritually  undeveloped 
as  no  doubt  they  were,  were  yet  exempt  from  such  spiritual 
malignities.  They  for  the  most  part  sympathize  with  the 
Lord  and  his  work  (Matt.  ix.  8).  While  others  said  that 
his  miracles  were  wrought  in  the  power  of  Beelzebub, 
they  glorified  God  because  of  them.  And  here,  too,  T 
cannot  doubt  but  that  out  of  an  intention  of  honouring 
Christ  they  sought  to  silence  these  suppliants.  He  may 
have  been  teaching  as  He  went,  and  they  would  not  have 
Him  interrupted  by  ill-timed  and  unmannerly  clamours. 

But  the  voices  of  these  suppliants  are  not  to  be  stifled 
so.  On  the  contrary,  '  they  cried  the  more,  saying.  Have 
mercy  07i  us,  0  Lord,  Thou  Son  of  TJavid.^  Many  admirable 
applications  of  this  little  feature  in  the  narrative  have 
been  made.  Is  there  not  here,  it  has  been  often  asked, 
the  story  of  innumerable  souls  ?  When  any  begins  to  be 
in  earnest  about  his  salvation,  to  cry  that  his  eyes  may  be 
opened,  that  he  may  walk  in  his  light  who  has  the  light  of 
life,  begins  to  despise  the  world  and  all  those  objects  which 
other  men  most  desire,  he  will  find  a  vast  amount  of 
opposition,  and  that  not  from  professed  enemies  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ,  but  from  such  as  seem,  like  this  multi- 
tude, to  be  with  Jesus  and  on  his  side.  Even  they  will 
endeavour  to  stop  his  mouth,  and  to  hinder  any  earnest 


*  Hilary:  Denique  eos  turba  objurgat,  quia  acerbe  a  caecis  audiunt 
quod  negabant,  Dominum  esse  David  Filium,  Compare  a  remarkable 
passage  ia  Tertullian  {Ado.  Marc.  iv.  36)  on  Christ's  allowance  of  tho 
ascription  of  this  title  to  Ilim, 


TWO  BLIND   MEN  NEAR   JERICHO.  459 

crjing  to  the  Lord.'  And  then,  Avith  a  picture  from  the 
life,  Augustine  mates  further  apph'cation  of  what  follows, 
when  Jesus,  arrested  as  ever  by  the  cry  of  need,  '  stood 
still,  and  commanded  him  to  he  called.'  For  then,  as  we 
read,  '  they  called  the  blind  man,  saying  unto  him,  Be  of  good 
comfort,  arise  J  He  calleth  thee.'  This  too,  he  observes, 
repeats  itself  continually  in  the  life  of  God's  saints.  If  a 
man  will  only  despise  and  overbear  these  obstacles  from  a 
world  which  calls  itself  Christian  ;  if,  despite  of  all  opposers, 
he  will  go  on,  until  Christ  is  evidently  and  plainly  with 
him,  then  the  very  same  who  at  the  first  checked  and 
reprehended,  will  in  the  end  applaud  and  admire ;  they 
who    at  first   exclaimed,    '  He   is   mad,'   will    end   with 

^  Augustine  («Sb*??i.  cccxlix.  5)  :  Hepreliensuri  sunt  nos  .  .  .  quasi  dilec- 
tores  uostri,  homines  seculares,  aiuantes  terram,  sapieutes  pulverem, 
nihil  de  c?eIo  ducentes,  auras  liberas  corde,  nave  carpentes :  reprehensuri 
sunt  nos  procul  dubio,  atque  dieturi,  si  viderint  nos  ista  huniaua,  ista  ter- 
rena  coutemnere:  Quid  pateris?  quid  insanis?  Turba  ilia  est  contra- 
dicens,  ne  crecus  clamet.  l^t  aliquanti  Christiani  sunt,  qui  prohibent 
vlvere  Christiane,  quia  et  ilia  turba  cum  Christo  ambulabat,  et  vocife- 
rantem  hominem  ad  Christum  ae  lucem  desiderantem,  ab  ipsius  Christi 
heneficio  prohibebat.  Sunt  tales  Christiani,  sed  vincamus  illos,  vivamiis 
bene,  et  ipsa  vita  sit  vox  nostra  ad  Christum.  Ap:aiu,  iSerm.  Ixxxviiii 
13,  14:  Incipiat  mundum  contemnere,  inopi  sua  distribuere,  pro  nihilo 
habere  qui©  homines  amaut,  contemn.at  iujurias,  ...  si  quis  ei  abstulerit 
sua,  non  repetat ;  si  quid  alieni  abstulerit,  reddat  quadruplum.  Cum 
ista  facere  coeperit,  omues  sui  cognati,  affines,  amici  commoventur.  Quid 
insanis  ?  Nimius  es  :  numquid  alii  nou  sunt  Christiani  ?  Ista  stultitia 
est,  ista  dementia  est.  Et  cetera  talia  turba  clamat,  ne  casci  clanieut.  .  .  . 
Bonos  Christianos,  vere  studiosos,  volentes  facere  prfccepta  Dei,  Christiani 
mali  et  tepidi  prohibent.  Turba  ipsa  qune  cum  Douiino  est  prohibot 
clamantes,  id  est,  prohibet  bene  operantes,  ne  perseverando  sanentur. 
Gregory  the  Great  gives  it  another  turn  (Ilom.  ii.  in  JEvanff.)  :  Siepe 
namque  dum  converti  ad  Dominum  post  perpetrata  vitia  volumus,  dum 
contra  hfec  eadem  exorare  \itia  quae  perpetravinius,  conamur,  occurrunt 
cordi  phantasmata  peccatorum  quse  fecimus,  mentis  nostras  aciem  rever- 
berant, confundunt   auimum,   et  vocem   nostrae   deprecationis  premunti 

Quse  pnieibant  ergo,  increpabant  eum,  ut  t.aceret In  se,  ut  sus- 

picor,  recognoscit  nuu^quisque  quod  dicimus:  quia  dum  ab  hoc  mundo 
animum  ad  Deum  nuitaaius,  dum  ad  orationis  opus  convertimur,  ipsa 
quoe  prius  delectabiliter  gessimus,  importuna  postea  atque  gravia  in 
oratione  nostra  tolf»nimus.  Vix  eorum  cogitatio  manu  sancti  desiderir 
ab  oculis  cordis  abigitur ;  vix  eorum  phantasmata  per  poenitentiae  laments 
euperantur. 

30 


4.60  THE   OPENING   OF  THE  EYES   OF 

exclaiming-,  '  He  is  a  saint.'  '     It  fared  exactly  thus,  for 
example,  with  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

'  And  he,  casting  away  his  garment,'  to  the  end  that  he 
might  obey  with  the  greater  expedition,^  and  without 
incumbrance,  '  rose  and  came  to  Jesus.'  In  this  his  ridding 
himself  of  all  which  would  have  hindered,  he  has  been  often 
held  forth  as  an  example  for  every  soul  which  Jesus  has 
called,  that  it  should  in  like  manner  lay  aside  every  weight 
and  every  besetting  sin  (Matt.  xiii.  44,  46;  Phil.  iii.  7). 
The  Lord's  question,  '  What  luilt  thou  that  I  should  do  unto 
thee  ? '  is,  in  part,  an  expression  of  his  readiness  to  aid,  a 
comment  in  act  upon  his  own.  words,  spoken  but  a  little 
while  before,  *  The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister '  (Matt.  xx.  28) ;  is  in  part  intended 
to  evoke  into  livelier  exercise  the  faith  and  expectation  of 
the  petitioner  (Matt.  ix.  28).  The  man,  whose  cry  has 
been  hitherto  a  vague  indeterminate  cry  for  mercy,  now 
singles  out  the  blessing  which  he  craves,  designates  the 
channel  in  which  he  desires  that  this  mercy  should  run,' 

1  Augustine  (Scrm.  Ixxxviii.  17):  Cum  quisque  Cliristianus  cceperit 
bene  vivere,  fervere  bonis  operibus,  niundumque  contemnere,  in  ipsa 
novitate  operum  suorum  patitur  reprehensores  et  contradictores  frigidos 
Christianos.  Si  autem  perseveraverit,  et  eos  superaverit  perdurando,  et 
non  defeeerit  a  bonis  operibus ;  iideni  ipsi  jam  obsequentur,  qui  ante  pro- 
liibebant.  Tamdiu  enim  corripiunt  et  perturbant  et  vetant,  quamdiu  sibi 
cedi  posse  prsesumunt.  Si  autem  victi  fuerint  perseverantia  proficientium, 
convertunt  se  et  dicere  incipiunt,  Magnus  homo,  sanctus  homo,  felix  cui 
Deus  concessit.  Honorant,  gratulantur,  benedicunt,  laudant ;  quomodo 
ilia  turba  quse  cum  Domino  erat.  Ipsa  prohibehat  ne  cteci  clamarent ; 
sed  post  quam  illi  ita  clamaverunt,  ut  mererentur  audiri,  et  impetrare 
misericordiam  Domini,  ipsa  turba  rursum  dicit,  Vocat  vos  Jesus.  Jam  et 
hortatores  fiunt,  qui  paulo  ante  corripiebant  ut  tacerent.  How  exactly 
this  was  the  story  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

«  Thus  II.  ii.  185:  B.'/  Si  eieir,  anb  St  x^nirav  jS'iXc.  and  in  Phadrifs, 
T.  fab.  2  :  Stringitque  gladium,  dein  rejectd  penuhi ;  cf.  Suetonius,  Ati- 
gud.  26. 

^  Gregory  the  Great  {Horn.  ii.  in  Evang.),  commenting  on  this  request 
of  theirs,  bids  us,  in  like  manner,  to  concentrate  our  petitions  on  the  chief 
thing  of  all:  Non  falsas  divitias,  non  terrena  dona,  non  fugitivos  honores 
a  Domino,  .sed  lucem  quajramus  :  nee  lucem  quae  loco  clauditur,  quaB  tem- 
pore finitur,  quae  noctium  interniptione  variatur,  qua;  a  nobis  communiter 
cum  pecoribus  cernitur:  sed  lucem  quteramus,  quam  videre  cum  soUvS 
Augeiis  poBsimus,  quam  nee  initium  inchoat,  nee  finis  angustat. 


TWO  BLIND  MEN  NEAR  JERICHO.  461 

'  Lord,  that  I  might  receive  my  sight.'  Only  St.  Matthew 
mentions  the  touching  of  the  eyes  which  were  to  be  restored 
to  vision  (cf.  ix.  29),  and  only  St.  Luke  the  word  of  power, 
'  Receive  thy  sight,'  by  which  the  cure  was  effected ;  while 
he  and  St.  Mark  record  nearly  similar  words,  passed  over 
by  St.  Matthew  :  '  Thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole  ' — '  Thy 
faith  hath  saved  thee'  (cf.  Matt.  ix.  22;  Mark  ix.  23; 
Luke  xvii.  19).  The  man,  who  had  hitherto  been  tied  to 
one  place,  now  used  aright  his  restored  eyesight ;  for  he 
used  it  to  follow  Jesus  in  the  way,  and  this  with  the  free 
outbreaks  of  a  thankful  heart,  himself  *  glorifying  God ' 
(Luke  xiii.  13  ;  xvii.  15),  and  being  the  occasion  also  that 
'  all  the  people,  when  they  saw  it,  gave  praise  unto  God '  as 
well  (Matt.  ix.  8;  Luke  xiii.  17;  Acts  iii.  8-10). 


31.  THE  CURSING   OF  THE  BAHREN  FIG-TREE. 
Matt.  xxi.  18-21;  Mark  xi,  12-14,  20-24. 

THIS  miracle  was  wrouglit  upon  the  Monday  of  the 
week  of  Passion.  On  the  Sunday  of  Pahns  our 
blessed  Lord  had  made  his  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem, 
and  in  the  evening, — since  even  now  his  hour,  though 
close  at  hand,  was  not  altogether  come, — He  retired  from 
the  snares  and  perils  of  the  city  to  the  safer  Bethany,  to 
the  house,  probably,  of  those  sisters  whom  He  had  so  lately 
made  rich  with  a  restored  brother,  and  there  passed  the 
night.  On  the  Monday  morning,  as  He  was  returning  from 
Bethany  to  his  ministry  in  the  city  very  early,  indeed 
before  sunrise,  the  word  against  the  fig-tree  was  spoken. 
That  same  evening  He  with  his  disciples  went  back  to 
Bethany  to  lodge  there,  but  probably  at  so  late  an  hour 
that  the  darkness  prevented  these  from  marking  the  effects 
which  had  followed  upon  that  word.  It  was  not  till  the 
morning  of  Tuesday  that  '  they  saiv  the  Jig-tree  dried  ujp 
from  the  roots.'*  Such  is  the  exact  order  of  events,  in  the 
telling  of  which  St.  Mark  shows  himself  a  more  accurate 
observer  of  times  than  the  first  Evangelist.  Not,  indeed, 
that  this  gives  him  any  superiority  :  our  advantn  ge  is  that 
we  have  both  records  : — St.  Matthew's,  who,  more  con- 
cerned for  the  inner  idea,  hastened  on  to  that,  omitting 
circumstances  which  came  between,  that  he  might  present 
the  whole  event  as  one,  at  a  single  glance,  in  a  single 
picture,  without  the  historical  perspective, — of  which 
he  at  no  time  takes  any  especial  note,  his  gifts  and  his  aim 
being  different; — and  also  St.  Mark's,  who  was  concerned 


CU USING   THE  BARREN  FIG-TREE.  463 

likewise  for  the  picturesque  setting  forth  of  the  truth  in 
its  external  details,  as  it  was  linked  with  times  and  with 
places,  as  it  gradually  unfolded  itself  before  the  eyes  of  men. 
But  while  such  differences  a?,  these  are  easily  set  at  one, 
and  they  who  magnify  them  into  difficulties  a,re  the  true 
Pharisees  of  history,  straining  at  gnats  and  swallowing 
camels,  there  are  other  and  undoubted  difficulties  in  this 
narrative,  such  as  we  are  bound  not  to  evade,  but  to  meet. 
Take  the  facts  as  recorded  by  St.  Matthew :  '  Norn  in  the 
morning,  as  He  returned  ivto  the  city,  He  hungered.  And 
xvhen  He  saw  a  fig-tree '  in  the  way.  He  came  to  it,  and  found 
nothing  the'^'eon  hut  leaves  only,  and  said  to  it.  Let  no  fruit 
grow  on  thee  hniceforward  for  ever.  And  presently  the  fig- 
tree  withered  away'  We  first  ask  ourselves  here,  how 
should  our  Lord,  knowing,  as  by  his  divine  power  He  must, 
that  there  was  no  fruit  upon  that  tree,  have  gone  to  seek 
it  there,  made  to  his  disciples  as  though  He  had  expected 
to  find  it?  Was  this  consistent  with  a  perfect  sincerity 
and  truth  ?  Slight  as  would  have  been  the  deceit,  yet,  if 
it  was  such,  it  would  trouble  the  clearness  of  our  image  of 
Him,  whom  we  conceive  as  the  absolute  Lord  of  truth.  It 
is  again  perplexing,  that  He  should  have  treated  the  tree 
as  a  moral  agent,  punishing  it  as  though  unfruitfulness 
had  been  any  guilt  upon  its  part.  This,  in  itself  perplex- 
ing, becomes  infinitely  more  so  through  a  notice  of  St. 
Mark's  ;  which  indeed  the  order  of  the  natural  year  would 
of  itself  have  suggested,  namely,  that  '  the  time  of  figs  was 
not  yet : '  so  that  at  the  time  when  they  could  not  reason- 
ably be  expected,^  He  sought,  and  was  displeased  at  failing 
to  find,  them.  For,  whatever  the  undermeaning  might 
have  been  in  treatmg  the  tree  as  a  moral  agent,  and 
granting  such  treatment  to  have  been  entirely  justified, 
yet  all  seems  again  lost  and  obscured,  if  the  tree  could 

*  Sc/cr/i'  fiiav.     Assuredly  /u'ai'  should  have  its  emphasis  here^  and  ba 
reproduced  in  the  translation. 
'  ^I'Kov  \timli'0Q  ItjTtitf  fiaii'ofjiiiov  (Marcus  Antoninus,  xi,  33). 


464  THE   CUMSma    OF 

not  have  been  otherwise  than  without  fruit  at  sucli  a  time. 
For  the  symbol  must  needs  be  carried  through ;  if  by  a 
figure  we  attribute  guilt  to  the  tree  for  not  having  fruit, 
we  must  be  consistent,  and  show  that  it  might  liave  had 
such,  that  there  was  no  justifying  reason  why  it  should 
have  had  none. 

Upon  the  first  point,  that  the  Lord  approached  the  tree, 
appearing  to  expect  fruit  upon  it,  and  yet  knowing  that  He 
should  find  none,  deceiving  thereby  those  who  were  with 
Him,  who  no  doubt  believed  that  what  He  professed  to 
look  for,  He  expected  to  find,  it  is  sufiicient  to  observe 
that  a  similar  charge  might  be  made  against  all  figurative 
teaching,  whether  by  word  or  by  deed :  for  in  all  such 
there  is  a  worshipping  of  truth  in  the  spirit  and  not  in 
the  letter ;  often  a  forsaking  of  it  in  the  letter,  for  the 
better  honouring  and  establishing  of  it  in  the  spirit.  A 
parable  is  told  as  true ;  and  though  the  facts  are  feigned, 
it  is  true,  because  of  the  moral  or  spiritual  truth  which 
sustains  the  outward  fabric  of  the  story ;  true,  because  it 
is  the  shrine  of  truth,  and  because  the  truth  which  it 
enshrines  looks  throiagh  and  through  it.  Even  so  a  sym- 
bolic action  is  done  as  real,  as  professing  to  mean  something; 
and  yet,  although  not  meaning  the  thing  which  it  pro- 
fesses to  mean,  is  no  deception,  since  it  means  souiething 
infinitely  higher  and  deeper,  of  which  the  lower  action  is  a 
type,  and  in  which  that  lower  is  lost ;  transfigured  and 
transformed  by  the  higher,  whereof  it  is  made  the  vehicle. 
"What  was  it,  for  instance,  here,  if  Christ  did  not  intend 
really  to  look  for  fruit  on  that  tree,  being  aware  that  it 
had  none  ?  yet  He  did  int(;nd  to  show  how  it  would  fare 
with  a  man  or  with  a  nation,  when  God  came  looking 
from  it  for  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  and  found  nothing 
but  the  abmidant  leaves  of  a  boastful  yet  empty  profes- 
sion.' 

*  Au}Tustine  (Queest,  Evmia.  ii.  51):  Non  cniin  onnie  quod  fingimus 
meudacium  est :  sed  quando  id  fingimus,  quod  nihil  signiticat,  tunc  est 


THE  BARREN  FIG-TREE.  4^5 

But  liow,  it  is  asked,  sliall  we  jvistify  liis  putting  forth 
his  ancer  on  a  tree  ?  Now  the  real  offence  which  is  here 
taken,  at  least  by  many,  is  that  He  should  have  put  forth 
his  anger  at  all ;  that  God  should  ever  show  Himself  as  a 
punishing  God ;  that  there  should  be  any  such  thing  as 
*  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb,'  as  the  having  to  give  account  of 
advantages,  as  a  day  of  doom.  But  seeing  that  such 
things  are,  how  needful  that  men  should  not  forget  it. 
Yet  they  might  have  forgot  it,  as  far  as  the  teaching  of 
the  miracles  wrought  by  our  Lord  went,  except  for  this 
one — all  the  others  being  miracles  of  help  and  of  healing. 
And  even  the  severity  of  this,  with  what  mercy  was  it 
tempered  !  Christ  did  not,  like  Moses  and  Elijah,  make 
the  assertion  of  God's  holiness  and  of  his  hatred  of  evil 
at  the  expense  of  the  lives  of  many  men,  but  only  at  the 
cost  of  a  single  unfeeling  tree.  His  miracles  of  mercy 
were  numberless,  and  on  men ;  his  miracle  of  judgment 
was  but  one,  and  on  a  tree.' 

mendaciuin.  Cum  autem  Actio  nostra  refertiir  ad  aliquam  siguificationem, 
non  est  luendacium,  sed  aliqua  figura  veritatis.  Alioquiu  onuiia  quae  a 
sapientibus  et  Sanctis  viris,  vel  etiam  ab  ipso  Domino  figurate  dicta  sunt, 
mendacia  deputabuntur,  quia  secundum  usitatum  iutellectum  non  subsi- 
stit  Veritas  talibus  dictis.  .  .  Sicut  autem  dicta,  ita  etiam  facta  linguntur 
sine  mendacio  ad  aliquam  rem  siguificandam  ;  unde  est  etiam  illud  Do- 
mini quod  in  fici  arbore  qufesivit  fructum  eo  tempore,  quo  ilia  poma  non- 
dum  essent.  Non  enim  dubium  est  illam  inquisitionem  non  fuisse  veram ; 
quivis  enim  bominum  sciret,  si  non  divinitate,  vel  tempore,  poma  illam 
arboreni  non  habere.  Fictio  igitur  quse  ad  aliquam  veritatem  refertur, 
figura  est;  qufe  non  refertur,  mendacium  est.  Cf.  Serm.  Ixxxix.  4-6: 
Quferit  intelligentem,  non  facit  errantem. 

^  Hilary  (Comm.  in  Matt,  in  loc):  In  eo  quidem  bonitatis  Dominicse 
argumentum  reperiemus.  Nam  ubi  offerre  voluit  procuratne  a  se  salutis, 
exemplum,  virtutis  suae  potestatem  in  numanis  corporibus  exercuit :  spem 
futuroruni  et  aniinos  salutem  curis  prsesentium  asgritudinum  commen- 
dans  :  .  .  .  nunc  vero,  ubi  in  contumaces  formam  severitatis  constituebat, 
futuri  speciem  damno  arboris  indicavit,  ut  infidelitatis  periculum,  sine 
detrimento  eorum  in  quorum  redemptionem  venerat,  doceretur.  Thus, 
too,  Grotius:  Clementissimus  Dominus,  quum  innumeris  miraculis  sua  in 
nos  seterna  beueficia  figurasset,  severitatem  judicii,  quod  iufrugiferoa 
homines  manet,  uno  duntaxat  signo,  idque  non  in  homine,  sed  in  non  sen- 
Bura  arbore,  adumbravit;  ut  certi  essemus  bonoriim  operum  sterilitatem 
gratiae  fecundantis  ademjitione  puniri.     Theophylact  brings  out  in  the 


466  THE   CURSING   OF 

But  then,  say  some,  it  was  unjust  to  deal  thus  witli  a 
tree  at  all,  wliicli,  being  incapable  of  good  or  of  evil,  was 
as  little  a  fit  object  of  blame  as  of  praise,  of  punishment 
as  reward.  But  this  very  objection  does,  in  truth,  involve 
that  it  was  not  unjust,  that  tho  tree  was  a  thing,  which 
might  therefore  lawfully  be  used  merely  as  a  means  for 
ends  lying  beyond  itself.  Man  is  the  prince  of  creation, 
and  aU  things  else  are  to  serve  him,  and  then  rightly  ful- 
fil their  subordinate  uses  when  they  do  serve  him, — in 
their  life  or  in  their  death, — yielding  unto  him  fruit,  or 
warning  him  in  a  figure  what  shall  be  the  curse  and  penalty 
of  unfruitfulness.  Christ  did  not  attribute  moral  respon- 
sibilities to  the  tree,  when  He  smote  it  because  of  its 
unfruitfulness,  but  He  did  attribute  to  it  a  fitness  for 
representing  moral  qualities.'  All  our  language  concern- 
ing trees,  a  good  tree,  a  had  tree,  a  tree  which  onght  to 
bear,  is  the  same  continual  transfer  to  them  of  moral 
qualities,  and  a  witness  for  the  natural  fitness  of  the 
Lord's  language, — the  language  indeed  of  an  act,  rather 
than  of  words.     By  his  word,  however  (Luke  xiii.  6-9), ^ 

same  way  tlie  (piXarOpuiTria  of  this  miracle :  bjpaim  wf  ru  ch^fov,  'Ira 

1  Witsius  (Meletem.  Leiden,  p.  414)  well :  At  quid  tandem  commisit  in- 
felix  arbor,  ob  quam  rem  tarn  iuopiiiato  mulctaretur  exitio?  Siverborum 
proprietatem  sectemur,  omnino  nihil.  Creaturte  enim  ratifmis  expertes, 
uti  virtutis  ac  vitii,  ita  et  pr£emii  ac  poenae,  proprie  et  stricte  loquendo, 
incapaces  sunt.  Potest  tamen  in  creaturis  istis  aliquid  existere,  quod, 
analogica  et  symbolica  quadam  ratione,  et  vitio  et  posuce  respondeat. 
Defectus  iVuctuum  in  arbore  ceteroquin  generosa,  succulenta,  bene  plan- 
tata,  frondosa,  multa  pollicente,  symbolice  respondet  vitio  animi  degene- 
rantis,  luxuriosi,  ingrati,  simulati,  superbi,  vera  tamen  virtute  destituti ; 
subitanea  arboris  ex  imprecatione  Christi  arefactio,  qua  tollitur  quid- 
quid  in  arbore  videbatur  esse  boni,-  analogiam  quandam  habet  cum  justis- 
sima  Christi  vindicta,  qua  in  eos  animadvertit,  qui  benignitate  sua  abu- 
tuntur.  Quemadmodum  igitur  peccata  ista  hominum  vere  merentur 
poenam,  ita  ica-'  avaXoyiav  dici  potest,  arborem,  ita  uti  descnipsimus 
comparatam,  mereri  exitium. 

*  The  fig-tree  appears  prominently  in  the  New  Testament  on  two  oc- 
casions; liere  and  at  Luke  xiii.  6;  on  neither  as  the  symbol  of  that  which 
is  good.  Isidore  of  Pelusium  (in  Cramer,  Catena,  in  loc.)  refers  to  the 
old  tradition,  that  it  was  the  tree  of  temptation  in  Paradise.     I'or  tradi- 


THE   BARREN  FIG-TREE.  467 

He  had  already  in  some  sort  prepared  his  disciples  for 
understanding  and  interpreting  his  act ;  and  the  not  un- 
frequent  use  of  this  very  symbol  in  the  Old  Testament,  as 
at  Hos.  ix.  10  ;  Joel  i.  7,  must  have  likewise  assisted  them 
here. 

But,  conceding  all  this,  it  may  still  be  objected,  Do  not 
those  words  of  St.  Mark,  ^for  the  time  of  jigs  was  not  yet,'' 
acquit  the  tree  even  of  this  figurative  guilt,  defeat  the  sym- 
bol, and  put  it,  so  to  speak,  in  contradiction  with  itself? 
Does  it  not  perplex  us  in  Him,  of  whom  we  claim  above  all 
things  that  highest  reason  should  guide  his  every  action, 
that  He  should  look  for  figs,  when  they  could  not  be 
found ; — that  He  should  bear  Himself  as  one  indignant, 
when  He  did  not  find  them  ?  The  simplest,  and  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  the  entu-ely  satisfying,  explanation  of  this 
difficulty  is  the  following.  At  that  early  period  of  the 
year,  March  or  April,  neither  leaves  nor  fruit  were  natu- 
rally to  be  looked  for  on  a  fig-tree  (the  passages  often 
quoted  to  the  contrary  not  making  out,  as  I  think,  their 
point'),  nor  in  ordinary  circumstances  Avould  any  one  have 

tions  of  impurity  onnnected  with  it,  see  Tertullian,  De  Pudicit.  6 ;  as 
Buffon  calls  it  arbre  indecent ;  on  wbicli  see  a  learned  note  in  Sepp.  Leben 
Jesif,  vol.  iii.  p.  225,  seq.  Bernard  (In  Cant.  Senn.  Ix.  3):  Maledicit  ficul- 
nese  pro  eo  quod  non  invenit  in  ea  fructum.  Bene  ticus,  quas  bona  licet 
Patriarcharum  radice  prodierit,  numquam  tainen  in  altum  proficere, 
uumquaui  se  humo  attollere  voluit,  numquam  respondere  radici  proceri- 
tate  ramorum,  generositate  florum,  fecunditate  fructu)im.  Male  prorsus 
tibi  cum  tua  radice  convenit,  arbor  pusilla,  tortuosa,  nodosa.  Radix  enim 
sancta.  Quid  ea  dignum  tuis  apparet  in  ramis  ?  The  Greek  proverbial 
expressions,  avKiviig  dri]o,  a  poor  strengthless  man,  '^v<ivii  iniKovpia,  un- 
helpful help,  *  succours  of  Spain,'  supply  further  parallels, 

^  Moreover  all  explanations  which  go  to  prove  that,  in  the  natural  or- 
der of  things,  there  might  have  been  in  Palestine,  even  at  this  early 
season,  figs  on  that  tree,  winter  figs  which  had  sui-vived  till  spring,  or 
the  early  figs  of  the  spring  itself,  seem  to  me  beside  the  mark.  For,  be 
this  fact  as  it  may,  they  shatter  upon  that  'v  ym,  ,)r  Kaipbt;  avKwv  of  St, 
Mark ;  from  which  it  is  plain  that  no  such  calciilation  of  probabilities 
brought  the  Lord  thither,  but  those  abnormal  leaves,  which  He  had  a 
right  to  count  would  be  accompanied  with  abnormal  fruit.  In  various 
ingenious  ways  it  has  been  sought  to  make  these  words  not  to  mean  what 
they  bear  upon  their  front  that  they  do  mean,  and  so  to  disencumber  the 


4.68  THE   CU USING   OF 

souglit  them  there.     But  that  tree,  by  putting  forth  leaves, 
made  pretension  to  be  something  more  than  others,  to  hare 

passage  of  difficulties  which  beset  it.     The  most  objectionable  device  of 
all  is  the  placing  of  a  note  of  interrogation  after  nvK-ujr,  and  making  the 
sacred  historian  to  burst  out  in  an  exclamation  of  wonder  at  the  barren- 
ness of  the  fig-tree, — \for  icas  it  not  the  time  of  Jigs? '     But  the  uniform 
absence  of  this  sort  of  passionate  narration — supplying  the  reader  with 
his  admiration,  his  wonder,  his  abhorrence,  all  ready  made — is  one  of  the 
most  striking  features  of  the  Gospel  story.    Scarcely  better,  though  more 
ingenious,  is  Daniel  Tioinsius'  suggestion,  which  has  found  favour  with 
Knatchbull,  Gataker,  and  others.     His  help  too  is  in  a  different  pointing 
and  accenting  of  the  passage,  as  thus,  ov  yap  iiv,  Kaipoi;  (tvk-i,>v,  'For  where 
He  was,  it  was  the  season  of  Jigs,' — in  the  mild  climate  of  Juda;a,  where, 
as  we  know,  the  fruits  of  the  earth  ripened  nearly  a  month  earlier  than 
in  Galilee.     But  MSS.  and  ancient  Versions  give  not  the  least  support ; 
and  to  express  ihi  loci  by  oi>  yap  »/»■  is  as  awkward  and  forced  as  well  can 
be.     Deyling  (Obss.  Sic.  vol.  iii.  p.  227),  who  has  Kninoel,  Wetstein, 
and  others  on  his  side,  is  better.    lie  malies  or=:i  {J.rw,  and  ^•  i(p('(,=tempus 
colligendi  fructus,  the  time  for  the  gathering  the  figs.     The  harvest  had 
not  yet  swept  away  the  crop ;  therefore  the  Lord  could  reasonably  look 
for  fruit  upon  the  tree ;  and  the  words  will  explain,  not  the  statement 
'He  fomul  nothing  hut  leaves,'  immediately  preceding,  but  his  earlier- 
mentioned  going  to  the  tree,  expecting  to  find  fruit  thereon.     The  re- 
moteness of  the  words  to  which  this  clause  will  then  refer  is  not  a  fatal 
objection,  for  see  Mark  xvi.  3,  4;  and  xii.  12,  where  the  words,  'for  they 
knew  that  lie  had  spoken  against  them,'  account  for  their  seeking  to  lay 
hold  on  Him,  not  for  their  fearing  the  people.     But  k-mpuQ  twv  tcnpTroju 
(Matt.  xxi.  34.;  cf.  Luke  xx.  10),  on  which  the  upholders  of  this  scheme 
greatly  rely,  means  the  time  of  the  ripe  fruits,  not  the  time  of  the  in- 
gathered.     Another  explanation,  which  Hammond,  D'Outrein,  and  many 
more  have  embraced,  makes  Kaipoc^^k-amhi;  fv(pnpoc,  and  St.  Mark  to  say 
that  it  was  an  unfavourable  season  for  figs.     A  very  old,  although  almost 
unnoticed,  reading,  6  yap  Kaip'ig  ovk  i/f  rrvK-wv,  might  be  urged  in  support 
of  this.     But  we  want  examples  of  xaipoc  as^K-xouo  fv  opcc,  for  Matt, 
xiii.   30,  Luke  xx.  10,  which  are  sometimes  adduced,   do  not  satisfy. 
Conscious  of  this,  Olshausen  and  a  writer  in  the  Theol.  Stud,  tmd  Krit. 
1843,  P-  ^3' J  ^6<l-»  bave  slightly  modified  this  view.     These  do  not  make 
ra(0((f  'season,'  since  the  season  for  the  chief  crop,  whether  good  or  bad, 
had  not  arrived,  and  therefore  there  was  no  room  for  expressing  a  judg- 
ment about  it ;  but  take  it  in  the  sense  of  weather,  temperature ;  Knipoq 
=tempus  opportunum.     If  there  had  been  favourable  weather,  at  once 
moist  and  warm,  there  would  have  been  figs  on  the  tree ;  not  indeed  the 
main  crop,  but  the  ficus  prtecox  (see  Pliny  H.  N.  xv.  19),  the  early  spring 
fig,  which  was  counted  an  especial  delicacy  ('  the  figs  that  are  first  ripe,' 
Jer.  xxiv.  2),  and  of  which  Isaiah  speaks  (xxviii.  4)  as  '  the  hady  fruit 
before  the  sionmer,  which  when  he  that  looketh  upon  it  seeth,  while  it  is 
yet  in  his  hand  he  eateth  it  up'  (cf.  Hos.  ix.  10);  or  if  not  these,  the 
late  winter  fig,  which  Shaw  mentions  (Winer,  Heahoorterhuch,  s.  v. 


THE  BARREN  FIG-TREE.  469 

fruit  1113011  it,  seeing  that  in  the  fig-tree  the  fruit  appears 
before  the  leaves.'  It,  so  to  speak,  vaunted  itself  to  be  in  ad- 
vance of  all  the  other  trees,  challenged  the  passer-bj  that 
he  should  come  and  refresh  himself  from  it.  Yet  w^hen 
the  Lord  accepted  the  challenge,  and  drew  near,  it  proved 
to  be  but  as  the  others,  without  fruit  as  they ;  for  indeed, 
as  the  Evangelist  observes,  the  time  of  figs  had  not  yet 
arrived, — the  fault,  if  one  may  use  the  word,  of  this  tree 
lying  in  its  pretension,  in  its  making  a  show  to  run  before 
the  rest,  when  it  did  not  so  indeed.  It  was  condemned, 
not  so  much  for  having  no  fruit,  as  that,  not  having  fruit, 
it  clothed  itself  abundantly  with  leaves,  with  the  foliage 
which,  according  to  the  natural  order  of  the  tree's  develop- 
ment, gave  pledge  and  promise  that  fruit  should  be  found 
on  it,  if  sought. 

And  this  will  then  exactly  answer  to  the  sin  of  Israel, 
which  under  this  tree  was  symbolized, — that  sin  being,  not 
so  much  that  it  was  without  fruit,  as  that  it  boasted  of  so 
much.  The  true  fniit  of  that  people,  as  of  any  people  before 
the  Incarnation,  would  have  been  to  own  that  it  had  no 
fruit,  that  without  Christ,  without  the  incarnate  Son  of 
God,  it  could  do  nothing ;  to  have  presented  itself  before 
God  bare  and  naked  and  empty  altogether.     But  this  was 

Feigenbaum)  as  first  ripening  after  the  tree  has  lost  its  leaves,  and 
banging  on  the  tree,  in  a  mild  season,  into  tlie  spring.  For  tliis  use  of 
K-aipiif  a  passage  much  to  the  point  has  been  cited  from  the  Hecuba  of 
Euripides : 

OVKOVI'   SeiVOl;    £1    yi)  Jilt'   KOK)), 

TvxoTiiya  Kaifiov  OioOtVy  tv  ardxvi'  <pepeif 
XpriTTt)  c  y  a^apTOvri'  wp  \p(wi'  avTiiv  TV^fiV) 
KaKuv  SiSioai  Kaoirov. 

Upon  this  Matthife  says :  Quum  Kawog  omnia  complectatur,  quae  alicui 
rei  opportuna  et  consentanea  sunt,  hoc  loco  proprie  significat  omnia  ea, 
quae  agris,  ut  fructus  ferant,  accomraodata  sunt,  ut  pluviam,  cseli  com- 
modam  temperiem,  quo  seiisu  accepisse  Euripidem  ex  adjecto  ^'toBtv 
patet.  Yet  allowing  all  this,  there  is  a  long  step  between  it  and  provinf 
raipof  nl'KMi'  to  be=tempus  opportunum  ficis.  See  Sir  T.  Browne,  Obss. 
upon  Plants  mentioned  in  Scripture, —  Works,  vol.  iv.  pp.  162-167. 

^  Pliny  (^H.  N.  xvi.  49) :  Ei  demum  serius  folium  nascitur  quam 
pomum. 


4-70  THE   CURSING   OF 

exactly  wliat  Israel  refused  to  do.  Other  nations  might 
have  nothing  to  boast  of,  but  thej  by  their  own  show- 
ing had  much.^  And  yet  on  closer  inspection,  the  sub- 
stance of  righteousness  was  as  much  wanting  on  their 
part  as  anywhere  among  the  nations  (Rom.  ii.  i ;   Matt. 

xxi.  33-43)- 

And  how  should  it  have  been  otherwise  ?  '/or  the  time  of 
figs  was  not  yet ; ' — the  time  for  the  bare  stock  and  stem  of 
humanity  to  array  itself  in  bud  and  blossom,  with  leaf  and 
fruit,  had  not  come,  till  its  engrafting  on  the  nobler  stock 
of  the  true  Man.  All  which  anticipated  this,  which  seemed 
to  say  that  it  could  he  anything,  or  do  anything,  otherwise 
than  in  Him  and  by  Him,  was  deceptive  and  premature. 
The  other  trees  had  nothing,  but  they  did  not  pretend  to 
have  anything;  this  tree  had  nothing,  but  it  gave  out  that 
it  had  much.  So  was  it  severally  with  Gentile  and  with 
Jew.  The  Gentiles  were  emjDty  of  all  fruits  of  righteous- 
ness, but  they  owned  it ;  the  Jews  were  empty,  but  they 
vaunted  that  they  were  full.  The  Gentiles  were  sinners, 
but  they  hypocrites  and  pretenders  to  boot,  and  by  so  much 
farther  from  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  more  nigh  unto  a 
curse.^  Their  guilt  was  not  that  they  had  not  the  perfect 
fruits  of  faithr,  for  the  time  of  such  had  not  yet  arrived ;  but 
that,  not  having,  they  so  boastfully  gave  out  that  they  had  : 
their  condemnation  was,  not  that  they  were  not  healed,  but 
that,  being  unhealed,  they  counted  themselves  whole.  The 
law  would  have  done  its  work,  the  very  work  for  which 
God  ordained  it,  if  it  had  stripped  them  of  these  boastful 
leaves,  or  indeed  had  hindered  from  ever  putting  them 
forth  (Rom.  v.  20). 

^  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  it  was  "witli  the  fig-leaves  that  in 
Paradise  Adam  attempted  to  deny  his  nakedness,  and  to  present  himself 
as  other  than  a  sinner  before  God  (Gen.  iii.  7). 

-  Witsius  {Me/etem.  Leiden,  p.  4.15):  Folia  sunt  jactatio  legis,  templi, 
cultus,  casrimoniarum,  pietatis  denique  et  sanctimoniae,  quarum  se  specie 
valde  efferebant.  Fructus  sunt  resipiscentia,  fides,  sanctitas,  q^uibus, 
carebant. 


THE  BARREN  FIG-TREE.  47 1 

Here  then,  according  to  this  explanation,  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty either  in  the  Lord's  going  to  the  tree  at  that  unsea- 
sonable time, — He  would  not  have  gone,  but  for  those 
deceitful  leaves  which  announced  that  fruit  was  there, — nor 
in  the  (symbolic)  punishment  of  the  unfruitful  tree  at  a 
season  of  the  year  when,  according  to  the  natural  order,  it 
could  not  have  had  any.  It  was  punished  not  for  being 
without  fruit,  but  for  proclaiming  by  the  voice  of  those 
leaves  that  it  had  fruit ;  not  for  being  barren,  but  for  being- 
false.  And  this  was  the  guilt  of  Israel,  a  guilt  so  much 
deeper  than  the  guilt  of  the  nations.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  supplies  the  key  to  the  right  understanding  of 
this  miracle  ;  such  passages  especially  as  ii.  3,  17  27  ;  x. 
3,  4,  21  ;  xi.  7,  10.  Nor  should  that  remarkable  parallel, 
'  And  all  the  trees  of  the  field  shall  know  that  I  the  Lord 
have  dried  up  the  green  tree,  and  made  the  dry  tree  to 
flourish'  (Ezek.  xvii.  24),  be  left  out  of  account,^  And 
then  the  sentence,  '  No  man  eat  fruit  of  thee  hereafter  for 
ever^  will  be  just  the  reversal  of  the  promise  that  in  them 
all  nations  of  the  earth  should  be  blessed — the  symbolic 
counterstroke  to  the  ratification  of  the  Levitical  priesthood 
through  the  putting  forth,  by  Aaron's  rod,  of  bud  and 
blossom  and  fruit  in  a  night  (Num.  xvii.  8).  Henceforth 
the  Jewish  synagogue  is  stricken  with  a  perpetual  barren- 
ness.' Once  it  was  everything,  but  now  it  is  nothing,  to 
the  world ;  it  stands  apart,  like  '  a  thing  forbid ; '  what 
little  it  has,  it  communicates  to  none  ;  the  curse  has  come 

'  Some  have  thought  that  our  Lord  alludes  to  this  work  of  his,  when 
He  asks,  '  Tf  they  do  these  things  in  a  green  tree,  what  shall  be  done  in 
the  dry?  '  (Luke  xxiii.  31).  If  thus  it  fared  with  Him,  'a  green  tree,' 
full  of  sap,  full  of  life,  if  He  were  thus  bruised  and  put  to  grief,  how 
should  it  fare  with  Israel  after  the  flesh,  '  the  dry '  tree,  withered  under 
the  curse  which  He  had  spoken  against  it  ? 

*  Witsius  {Melefem.  Leiden,  p.  415):  Parabolica  ficus  nialedictio  sig- 
nificavit,  futurum  esse  ut  populus  Israeliticus,  justa  Dei  indignatione 
omni  vigore  et  succo  spiritualis  fecunditatis  privetur,  et  quia  fructus 
bonorum  operuni  proferre  isthoc  tempore  noluit,  dein  nee  possit.  Ac 
veluti  maledictionis  sententiam  ficus  arefactio  prntinus  exct'pit,  sic  et 
JudjBorum  natio,  mcx  post  spretum  proterve  Messiam,  exaruit. 


472  THE   CURSING   OF 

upon  it,  tliat  no  man  henceforward  sliall  eat  fruit  of  it  for 
ever.* 

And  yet  this  'for  ever '  has  its  merciful  limitation,  when 
we  come  to  transfer  the  curse  from  the  tree  to  that  of  which 
the  tree  was  as  a  living  parable;  a  limitation  which  the  word 
itself  favours  and  allows ;  which  lies  hidden  in  it,  to  be  re- 
vealed in  due  time.  None  shall  eat  fruit  of  that  tree  to  the 
end  of  the  present  age,  not  until  these  '  times  of  the  Gen- 
tiles '  are  fulfilled.  A  day  indeed  will  come  when  Israel, 
which  now  says,  '  I  am  a  dry  tree,'  shall  consent  to  that 
word  of  its  true  Lord,  which  of  old  it  denied,  '  From  Me  is 
thy  fruit  found  '  (Hos.  xiv.  8),  and  shall  be  arrayed  with  the 
richest  foliage  and  fruit  of  all  the  trees  of  the  field.  The 
Lord,  in  his  great  discourse  upon  the  last  things  (Matt, 
xxiv.),  implies  this,  when  He  gives  this  commencing  con- 
version of  the  Jews,  under  the  image  of  the  re-clothing  of 
the  bare  and  withered  fig-tree  with  leaf  and  bud,  as  the 

^  Augustine  brings  out  often  and  well  the  figurative  cliaracter  of  this 
miracle  ; — thougli,  witli  most  expositors,  he  misses  the  chief  stress  of  this 
tree's  (symbolic)  guilt,  namely,  its  running  before  its  time,  and  by  its 
leaves  proclaiming  it  had  fruit ;  when  its  true  part  and  that  which  the 
season  justified,  would  have  been  to  present  itself  with  neither.  He 
makes  its  real  barrenness,  contrasted  with  its  pomp  of  leaves,  to  be  the 
stress  of  its  fault,  leaving  out  of  sight  the  utitimeliness  of  those  leaves  and 
of  that  pretence  of  fruit,  which  is  the  most  important  element  in  the 
whole.  Thus  Serm.  Ixxvii.  5  :  Etiam  ipsa  quse  a  Domino  facta  sunt, 
aliquid  signiticantia  erant,  quasi  verba,  si  dici  potest,  visibilia  et  aliquid 
significantia.  Quod  maxime  apparet  in  eo  quod  prseter  tempus  poma 
qusesivit  in  arbore,  et  quia  non  invenit,  arbori  maledicens  aridara  fecit. 
Hoc  factum  nisi  figuratum  accipiatur,  stultum  invenitur ;  primo  quaesisse 
poma  in  ilia  arbore,  quando  tempus  non  erat  ut  essent  in  uUa  arbore : 
deinde  si  pomorum  jam  tempus  esset,  non  habere  poma  qufe  culpa  arboris 
esset  ?  Sed  quia  significabat,  quserere  se  non  solum  folia,  sed  et  fructum, 
id  est,  non  solum  verba,  sed  et  facta  hominum,  arefaciendo  ubi  sola  folia 
invenit,  significavit  eorum  poenam,  qui  loqui  bona  possunt,  facere  bona 
nolunt.  Cf.  Serm.  xcviii.  3  :  Christus  nesciebat,  quod  rusticus  sciebat  ? 
quod  noverat  arboris  cultor,  non  noverat  arboris  creator  .P  Cum  ergo 
esuriens  poma  qusesivit  in  arbore,  significavit  se  aliquid  esurire,  et  aliquid 
aliud  quaerere ;  et  arborera  illam  sine  fructu  foliis  plenam  repent,  et 
maledixit ;  et  aruit.  Quid  arbor  fecerat  fructum  non  afierendo  ?  Quae 
culpa  arboris  infecunditas  ?  Sed  sunt  qui  fructum  voluntate  dare  non 
possunt.  lUorum  est  culpa  sterilitas,  quorum  fecunditas  est  voluntas. 
Cf.  Coti.  Faust,  xxii.  25. 


THE   BARREN  FIG-TREE.  473 

sign  of  the  breaking  in  of  the  new  seon :  '  !N'ow  learn  a 
parable  of  the  fig-tree.  When  his  branch  is  yet  tender, 
and  putteth  forth  leaves,  ye  know  that  summer  is  nigh  : 
so  likewise  ye,  when  ye  shall  see  all  these  things,  know 
that  it  is  near,  even  at  the  doors'  (ver.  32,  33). 

It  would  appear  from  St.  Matthew  that  some  beginnings 
of  the  threatened  withering  began  to  show  themselves, 
almost  as  soon  as  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  spoken;  a 
shuddermg  fear  may  have  run  through  all  the  leaves  of  the 
tree,  which  was  thus  stricken  at  its  heart.  But  it  was  not 
till  the  next  morning,  as  the  disciples  returned,  that  they 
took  note  of  the  utter  perishing  of  the  tree,  which  was  now 
'  dried  up  from  the  roots ; '  whereupon  '  Peter  calling  to  re- 
memhrance^  saithunto  Him:  Master,  behold,  the  fig-tree  which 
Thou  cursedsf  is  luithered  away.'  He  will  not  let  the  occa- 
sion go  by  without  its  further  lesson.  What  He  had  done, 
they  might  do  the  same  and  more.  Faith  in  God  would 
place  them  in  relation  witli  the  same  powers  which  He 
wielded,  so  that  they  might  do  mightier  things  even  than 
this  at  which  they  marvelled  so  much. 


32.  THE  HEALING   OF  MALCHUS'  hAM 
Luke  xxii.  49-51. 

THE  blow  struck  by  a  disciple,  who  would  fain  have 
fought  for  his  Master,  that  He  should  not  be  delivered 
to  the  Jews,  is  recorded  by  all  four  Evangelists  (Matt.  xxvi. 
51 ;  Mark  xiv.  47  ;  Luke  xxii.  50  ;  John  xviii.  10)  ;  but  the 
miracle  belongs  only  to  St.  Luke,  for  he  ovUy  tells  how  the 
Lord  made  good  the  injury  which  his  discij)le  had  inflicted, 
touched  and  restored  the  ear  which  he  had  cut  off.  It  is 
]30ssible  that  a  double  interest  may  have  specially  moved 
this  Evangelist  to  include  in  Ms  narrative  this  work  of 
grace  and  power.  As  a  physician,  this  cure,  the  only  one 
of  its  kind  which  we  know  of  our  Lord's  performing,  the 
only  miraculous  healing  of  a  wound  inflicted  by  external 
violence,  would  attract  his  special  attention.  And  then, 
further,  nothing  lay  nearer  to  his  heart,  or  cohered  more 
intimately  with  the  purpose  of  his  Gospel,  than  the  por- 
traying of  the  Lord  on  the  side  of  his  gentleness,  his  mercy, 
his  benignity ;  and  of  all  these  there  was  an  eminent  mani- 
festation in  this  gracious  work  wrought  on  behalf  of  one 
who  was  in  arms  against  his  life. 

St.  Luke,  no  doubt,  knew  very  well,  though  he  did  not 
think  good  to  set  it  down  in  his  narrative,  whose  hand  it 
was  that  struck  this  blow, — whether  that  the  deed  might 
still  have  brought  him  into  trouble,  though  this  appears  an 
exceedingly  improbable  explanation,  or  from  some  other 
cause.  The  two  earlier  Evangelists  preserve  a  like  silence 
on  this  head,  and  are  content  with  generally  designating 


THE  HEALING   OF  MALCIIUS'  E2VR.  475 

aim,  —  St.  Matthew  as  '  one  of  them  who  were  wiith  Jesus,*  St. 
Mark  as  *  one  of  them  which  stood  by.'  It  is  only  from  St. 
John  we  learn,  what  perhaps  we  might  otherwise  have  sur- 
mised, but  could  not  certainly  have  known,  that  it  was 
Peter  who  struck  this  only  blow  stricken  in  defence  of  th(^ 
Lord.  He  also  tells  us  what  perhaps  the  other  Evangelists 
did  not  know,  the  name  of  the  High  Priest's  servant  w^ho 
was  wounded;  '  the  servant's  name  was  Malchus.'^  It  is  in 
entire  consistency  with  all  else  which  we  read,  that  this 
fact  should  have  come  within  the  circle  of  St.  John's  know- 
ledge, who  had,  in  some  way  that  is  not  explained  to  us, 
acquaintance  with  the  High  Priest  (John  xviii.  15),  and  so 
accurate  a  knowledge  of  the  constitution  of  his  household 
that  he  is  able  to  tell  us  of  one,  who  later  in  the  night  pro- 
voked Peter  to  his  denial  of  Christ,  that  he  was  '  his  kins- 
man whose  ear  Peter  cut  off'  (ver.  26). 

The  whole  incident  is  singularly  characteristic ;  the 
ivord-hearer  for  the  rest  of  the  Apostles  proves,  when 
occasion  requires,  the  s?rord!-bearer  also — not  indeed  in 
this  altogether  of  a  different  temper  from  the  others,  but 
showing  himself  prompter  and  more  daring  in  action  than 
them  all.  While  they  are  inquiring,  'Lord,  shall  ive  smite 
ivith  the  sword  ? '  (Luke  xxiii.  38)  perplexed  between  the 
natural  instinct  of  defence,  with  love  to  their  perilled 
Lord,  on  the  one  side,  and  his  precepts  that  they  should 
not  resist  the  evil,  on  the  other, — he  waits  not  for  the 
answer;  but  impelled  by  the  natural  courage  of  his  heart,^ 
and  careless  of  the  odds  against  him,  aims  a  blow  at  one, 
probably  the  foremost  of  the  band,  the  first  that  was 
daring  to  lay  profane  hands  on  the  sacred  person  of  his 
Lord.  This  was  '  a  servant  of  the  High  Priest,*  one  there- 
fore who,  according  to  the  proverb,  '  like  master  like  man,' 

^  Joseplms  twice  mentions  an  Arabian  king  of  this  name,  B  J.'i.i^.  i  ; 
Antiqq.  xiii.  5.  i.  Mitlcluis,  -which  means  king,  was  the  proper  name  of 
Porphyry,  the  Xeoplatonic  philosopher.  Louginus,  rendering  it  intu 
Greek,  called  him  llnoij/ojor,  or  the  Purple-wearer. 

'  Josephus  characterizes  the  Galilfleans  as  /lax-i/^oct,-* 

31 


4-76  THE  HEALING   OF  MALCHUS'  EAli. 

may  have  been  especially  forward  in  tliis  bad  work, — 
himself  a  Caiaphas  of  a  meaner  stamp ;  a  volunteer  too 
on  the  present  occasion,  and  not,  as  the  '  officers,'' '  in  the 
execution  of  his  duty.  Peter  was  not  likely  to  strike  with 
other  than  a  right  good  will ;  and  no  doubt  the  blow  was 
intended  to  cleave  down  the  aggressor ;  though  by  God's 
good  providence  the  stroke  was  turned  aside,  and  grazing 
the  head  at  which  it  was  aimed,  but  still  coming  down 
with  sheer  descent,  cut  off  the  ear, — the  '  right  ear,''  as  St. 
Luke  and  St.  John  tell  us, — of  the  assailant,  who  thus 
hardly  escaped  with  his  life. 

The  words  with  which  our  Lord  rebuked  the  untimely 
zeal  -  of  his  disciple  are  differently  given  by  different 
Evangelists,  or  rather  each  has  given  a  different  portion, 
each  one  enough  to  indicate  the  spirit  in  which  all  was 
spoken.  St.  Matthew  records  them  most  at  length  (xxvi. 
52-54)  ;  while  St.  Luke  passes  them  over  altogether. 
That  moment  of  uttermost  confusion  might  seem  unsuit- 
able for  so  long  a  discourse,  indeed  hardly  to  have  given 
room  for  it.  We  shall  best  suppose  that  while  the  healing 
of  Malchus  Avas  proceeding,  and  all  were  watching  and 

^  He  is  SvvXoQ  not  hiriiptrm;  (JoLn  xviii.  3). 

^  Modern  expositors  are  sometimes  much  too  bard  upon  this  exploit  of 
Peter's;  Calvin:  Stulto  suo  zelo  Petrus  gravem  infamiam  mat;istro  sue 
ej  usque  doctrinoe  inusserat, — •u-itli  much  more  in  this  tone.  The  wisest 
word  upon  the  matter  (and  on  its  Old-Testament  parallel,  Exod.  ii.  12)  is 
Augustine's  Con.  Faust,  xxii.  70.  He  keeps  as  far  from  this  unmeasured 
rebuke  as  from  the  extravagance  of  Romish  expositors,  who  exalt  this 
act  as  one  of  a  holy  indignation  ;  liken  it  to  the  act  of  Phiuehas  (Num. 
XXV.  7)  by  which  he  won  the  high  priesthood  for  his  family  for  ever. 
Leo  the  Great  (Serm.  L.  4.)  had  led  the  way :  Nam  et  beatus  Petrus,  qui 
aaimosiore  constantia  Domino  cohferebat,  et  contra  violentorum  impetus 
fervore  sanctpe  carltatis  exarserat,  in  servum  principis  sacerdotura  usus 
est  gladio,  et  aurem  viri  ferocius  instantis  abscidit.  Another  finds  in  that 
command,  '  Put  up  thy  sivord  into  Iiis  place,'  a  sanction  for  the  wielding  of 
the  civil  sword  by  the  Church  ;  for,  as  he  bids  us  note,  Christ  does  not  say, 
'  Put  away  thy  sword ; '  but  '  Put  vp  thy  sivord  into  his  place,' — that  is, 
*  Keep  it  in  readiness  to  draw  forth  again,  when  the  right  occasion  shall 
arrive.'  Tertullian,  in  an  opposite  extreme,  concludes  from  tliese  words 
that  the  military  service  is  always  unlawful  for  the  Christian  {De  IdoloL 
J  6}  :  Omnem  militem  Domiuus  in  Petro  exarmando  discinxit. 


THE  HEALING    OF  MALCIIUS'  EAR.  477 

wondering,  the  Lord  spoke  tliese  quieting  words  to  his 
disciples.  Possibly  too  liis  captors,  who  had  feared  re- 
sistance or  attempts  at  rescue  on  the  part  of  his  followers, 
now  when  they  found  that  his  words  prohibited  aught  of 
the  kind,  may  have  been  unwilling  to  interrupt  Him.  To 
Peter,  and  in  him  to  all  the  other  disciples.  He  says  :  '  Put 
up  again  thy  sword  into  his  place  ;  for  all  they  that  tahe  the 
sivord  shall  perish  hy  the  sword.'  Christ,  joining  together 
the  taking  of  the  swoi'd  and  the  perishing  by  the  SAvord, 
refers,  no  doubt,  to  the  primal  law,  '  Whoso  sheddeth 
man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed '  (Gen.  ix.  6  ; 
cf  Eev.  xiii.  lo).  This  saying  has  been  sometimes  wrongly 
understood,  as  though  the  Lord  were  pacifying  Peter  with 
considerations  such  as  these, '  There  is  no  need  for  thee  to 
assume  the  task  of  punishing  these  violent  men  :  they 
have  taken  the  sword,  and  by  the  just  judgment  of  God 
they  will  perish  by  the  sword.'  ^  But  the  warning  against 
taking  the  sword  connects  itself  so  closely  with  the  com- 
mand, ^  Put  up  again  thy  sword  into  his  place,'  and  the 
meaning  of  the  verse  following  (Matt.  xxvi.  53)  is  so 
plainly,  '  Thinkest  thou  that  I  need  a  feeble  help  like 
thine,  when,  instead  of  you,  twelve  weak  trembling  men, 
inexpert  in  war,  I  might  even  now  at  this  latest  moment 
lyray  to  iny  Father,  and  He  tvill  presently  give  3Ie^  more 
than  twelve  legions  ^  of  Angels  to  fight  on  my  behalf?  '  ^ — 

'  Tlius  Grotius:  Noli,  Petre,  consideratione  ejus  quae  mihi  infertur  in- 
juritB  concitatior,  Deo  prferipere  ultionem.  Levia  enim  sunt  vulnera 
qufB  a  te  pati  possunt.  Stat  enim  rata  sententia,  crudeles  istos  at  san- 
guinarios,  etiara  te  quiescente,  gravissimas  Deo  daturos  poenas  suo  san- 
guine. This  interpretation  is  a  good  deal  older  than  Grotius.  Chrysostom 
has  it;  and  Euthj'uiias  sees  in  these  words  a  Trpo-;>j]THa  rz/t,-  ?iO(p!-:opa^  twv 
iTiX^ni'Twv  avroj  'lovOrilwi'. 

-  YlaoanriifTEi  juo(=rservitio  meo  sistet  (Eom.  vi.  19  ;  xii.  1). 

^  We  are  reminded  here  of  the  TrXjj^or  rrrpanaQ  cvpaviov  (Luke  ii.  13), 
and  other  language  of  the  same  kind.  Without  falling  in  with  the  dreams 
of  the  Areopagite,  we  may  see  intimations  here  of  a  hierarchy  in  heaven. 
Bengel :  Angeli  in  suos  numeros  et  ordines  divisi  sunt. 

^  Jerome :  Non  indigeo  duodecim  Apostolorum  auxilio,  qui  possum 
habere  duodecim  legiones  angelici  exercitus.  Maldonatus  :  Mihi  quidem 
verosimile  videtur  Christum  angelos  non  militibus,  sed  discipulis  oppo- 


4/8  THE  HEALING   OF  MALCHUS'  EAR. 

that  all  tlie  ingenuity  wliicli  Gi'otius  and  otliers  use,  and 
it  is  much,  to  recommend  the  other  interpretation,  cannot 
persuade  to  its  acceptance.  This  mention  of  the  '  twelve 
legions  of  Angels,''  whom  it  was  free  to  Him  to  summon  to 
his  aid,  brings  the  passage  into  striking  relation  with 
2  Kin.  vi.  17.  A  greater  than  Elisha  is  here,  who  thus 
speaking  would  purge  the  spiritual  eye  of  his  troubled 
disciple,  and  make  him  to  see  the  mount  of  God,  full  of 
chariots  and  horses  of  fii-e,  armies  of  heaven  camping 
round  his  Lord,  which  a  beck  from  Him  would  bring 
forth,  to  the  utter  discomfiture  of  his  enemies.  ^  But  how 
then  shall  the  Scriptures  he  fulfilled,  that  thus  it  must  he  ?  ' 
The  temptation  to  claim  the  assistance  of  that  heavenly 
host, — supposing  Him  to  have  felt  the  temptation, — is 
quelled  in  an  instant ;  for  how  then  should  that  eternal 
purpose,  that  will  of  God,  of  which  Scripture  was  the 
outward  expression,  '  that  thus  it  must  he,'  have  then  been 
fulfilled  (cf.  Zech.  xiii.  7)  ?  In  St.  John  the  same  entire 
subordination  of  his  own  will  to  his  Father's,  which  must 
hinder  Him  from  claiming  this  unseasonable  help,  finds  its 
utterance  under  another  image  :  '  The  cup  which  my  Father 
hath  given  Me,  shall  I  not  drinh  it  ? '  This  language  is 
frequent  in  Scripture,  resting  on  the  image  of  some  potion 
which,  however  bitter,  must  yet  be  drained.  Besides  Matt. 
XX.  22,  23  ;  xxvi.  39,  where  the  cup  is  one  of  holy  suffering, 
there  is  often,  especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  mention  of 
the  cup  of  God's  anger  (Isai.  li.  17,  22 ;  Ps.  xi.  6 ;  Ixxv.  8  ; 
Jer.  XXV.  15,  17;  xlix.  12;  Lam.  iv.  21;  Eev,  xiv.  10; 
xvi.  19) ;  in  every  case  the  cup  being  one  from  which  flesh 

neve,  qui  duodecim  erant,  ac  propterea  duodecira  non  plures  nee  pauciores 
legiones  noniinasse,  ut  indicaret  posse  se  pro  duodecim  hominibus  duode- 
cim legiones  habere.  The  fact  that  the  number  of  Apostles  who  were 
even  tempted  to  draw  sword  in  Christ's  behalf  was,  by  the  apostasy  of 
Judas,  reduced  now  to  eleven,  need  not  remove  us  from  this  iuterpreta- 
tion.  The  Lord  contemplates  them  in  their  ideal  completeness.  He  does 
the  same  elsewhere:  ^  Ye  shall  sit  upon  twelve  thrones,  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel'  (Matt.  xix.  28  ;  cf.  Luke  xxii.  30)— when,  indeed, 
it  vras  not  Judas,  but  his  successor,  that  should  occupy  a  throne. 


THE  HEALING   OF  MALCHUS'   EAR.  479 

and  blood  shrinks  back,  wliicb  a  man  would  fain  put  away 
from  bis  lips,  tbougb  a  moral  necessity  in  the  case  of  the 
godly,  and  a  physical  in  that  of  the  ungodly,  will  not  suffer 
it  to  be  thus  put  aside. 

The  words  that  follow,  'Suffer  ye  thus  far,*  are  still 
addressed  to  the  disciples  :  '  Hold  now  ;  thus  far  ye  have 
gone  in  resistance,  but  let  it  be  no  further ;  no  more  of 
this.'  The  explanation,  which  makes  them  to  ha\'e  been 
spoken  by  the  Lord  to  his  captors,  that  they  shoiild  bear 
with  Him  till  He  had  accomplished  the  cure,  has  nothing 
to  recommend  it.  Having  thus  checked  the  too  forward 
zeal  of  his  disciples,  and  now  carrying  out  into  act  his  own 
precept,  '  Love  your  enemies,  do  good  to  them  that  hate 
you,'  He  touched  the  ear  of  the  wounded  man,  '  and  healed 
him.*  Peter  and  the  rest  meanwhile,  after  this  brief  flash 
of  a  carnal  courage,  forsook  their  divine  Master,  and,  leav- 
ing Him  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  fled,— the  wonder  of 
the  crowd  at  that  gracious  work  of  the  Lord,  or  the  tumult, 
with  the  darkness  of  the  night,  or  these  both  together, 
favouring  their  escape. 


5 J.    THE  SECOND  MIRACULOUS  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES. 
John  xxi.  1-23. 

IT  almost  seemed  as  tliougli  St.  Jolin's  Gospel  had  found 
its  solemn  completion  in  tlie  words  (ver.  30,  31)  witb 
wliicli  tlie  preceding  chapter  ended ;  so  that  this  chapter 
appears,  and  probably  is,  in  the  exactest  sense  of  the  word, 
a  jpostscrijpt, — something  which  the  beloved  Apostle,  after 
he  had  made  an  end,  thought  it  important  not  to  leave  un- 
told ;  which  he  added,  perhaps,  at  the  request  of  his  disci- 
ples, who,  having  often  drunk  in  the  storj  from  his  lips, 
desired  that  before  his  departure  he  should  set  it  down, 
that  the  Chiu'ch  might  be  enriched  with  it  for  ever,^     Or, 

^  Doubts  of  the  authenticity  of  this  chapter  were  first  stirred  by  Gro- 
tius ;  he  supposed  it  to  have  been  added,  probably  after  St.  John's  death, 
by  the  Ephesian  elders,  who  had  often  heard  the  story  from  his  lips. 
These  doubts  have  little  or  nothing  to  warrant  them.  Unlike  another 
really  suspicious  passage  in  St.  John's  Gospel  (viii.  i-ii),  there  is  no 
outward  evidence  against  this.  Every  MS.  and  early  Version  possesses 
it,  nor  was  there  ever  a  misgiving  about  it  in  antiquity.  He  therefore, 
and  his  followers  here,  Clericus,  Semler,  Liicke,  Schott  (Comtn.de  Indole 
Cap.  ult.  Ev.  Joh.  Jen.  1825),  Wieseler,  De  Wette,  Baur,  can  have  none 
but  internal  evidence  to  urge,  evidence  frequently  deceptive,  and  always 
inconclusive,  but  here  even  weaker  than  usual.  Everywhere  we  mark 
the  hand  of  the  beloved  disciple.  Not  merely  is  the  whole  tone  of  the 
narration  his ; — for  that  might  very  well  be,  were  others  reporting  what 
he  had  often  told  them;— but  single  phrases  and  turns  of  language,  un- 
observed till  we  have  such  motives  for  observing  them,  attest  his  hand. 
He  only  uses  Tijitpiacj  BaXanna  T)]<:  Tififpiacog  (vi.  1,23)  for  the  lake  of 
Galilee ;  or  -rrni^'ut  as  a  word  of  address  from  the  teacher  to  the  taught 
(cf.  ver.  5  with  i  John  ii.  13, 18) ;  Tici^fM-,  which  occurs  twice  (ver.  3,  10), 
and  on  six  other  occasions  in  his  Gospel,  is  found  only  thrice  besides  in 
the  whole  New  Testament.  Again,  iXkvhi'  (ver,  6,  11)  is  one  of  his 
words  (vi.  44;  xii.  32;  xviii.  20),  being  found  elsewhere  but  once.  The 
double  a^Li]i>  (ver.  18)  is  exclusively  St.  John's,  occurring  twenty-five 


SECOND  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  481 

if  we  call  Jolm  i.  1-14  the  prologue,  this  we  might  style 
the  epilogue,  of  his  Gospel.  As  that  set  forth  what  tlio 
Son  of  God  was  before  He  came  from  the  Father,  even  so 
this,  in  m3'stical  and  prophetic  guise,  how  He  should  rule 
in  the  world  after  He  had  returned  to  the  Father. 

^  After  these  things  Jesus  shoived^  Himself  again  to  the  dis- 
ciples at  the  sea  of  Tiberias.'  St.  John  alone  gives  to  the  lake 
this  name.  His  motive  no  doubt  was  that  so  it  would 
be  more  easily  recognized  by  those  for  whom  he  especi- 
ally wrote — Tiberias,  built  by  Herod  Antipas  m  honour  of 
Tiberius,  being  a  city  well  known  to  the  heathen  world. 
On  the  first  occasion  of  Rising  this  name,  he  marks  the 
identity  of  this  lake  with  the  lake  of  Galilee  mentioned  by 
the  other  Evangelists  (vi.  i)  but  does  not  count  it  neces- 
sary to  repeat  this  here.  Doubtless  there  is  a  significance 
in  the  words,  '  shoived  Himself  or  '  manifested  Himself 
which  many  long  ago  observed, — no  other  than  this,  that 
his  body  after  the  resurrection  was  only  visible  by  a  distinct 
act  of  his  will.  From  that  time  the  disciples  did  not,  as 
before,  see  Jesus,  but  Jesus  appeared  rmto,  or  was  seen  by, 
them.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  in  language  of  this  kind 
all  his  appearances  after  the  resurrection  are  related  (Mark 
xvi.  12,14;  Lukexxiv.  34;  Acts  xiii.  31  ;  i  Cor.  xv.  5-8). 
It  is  the  same  with  angelic  and  all  other  manifestations 
of  a  higher  heavenly  world.     Men  do  not  see  them;  such 

times  in  his  Gospel,  never  elsewhere;  and  so  too  the  appellation  of 
Thomas,  Biofiar  o  Aty-'/ifroe  Ai^vfinc  (ver.  2;  cf.  xi.  16;  XX,  24)  :  compare 
too  ver.  19  with  xii.  23  and  xviii.  32;  the  use  of  u/iulwi:  (ver.  13)  with 
the  parallel  use  at  vi.  11.  o-^aptov  (ver,  9,  10,  13;  of.  vi.  9,  11),  and 
TraXii'  hi'Tiimv  (ver,  i6;  cf.  iv,  54),  belong-  only  to  him;  and  the 
narrator  interposing^  words  of  his  own,  to  avert  a  misconception  of  words 
spoken  by  the  Lord  (ver.  19),  is  in  St.  John's  favourite  manner  (ii.  21; 
vi.  6;  vii.  39).  And  of  these  peculiarities  many  more  might  be 
adduced. 

'  This  i(pni4pc)nfi'  tavrov  of  his  last  miracle  St.  John  intends  us  to 
bring  into  relation  with  the  i<t>av'cpMf7i  t)]v  c,\^av  of  his  first  (ii.  11);  which 
being  so,  our  Version  should  have  preserved,  as  a  hint  of  this,  the  '  mani- 
fested'  which  it  there  employs.  Compare  too  the  taunt  of  vii.  4.:  ravi^ 
fiiunov  aeai'Tur  :  this  He  is  now  doing. 


482  THE  SECOND  MIRACULOUS 

laiiguag-e  would  be  inappropriate ;  but  they  appear  to  men 
(Judg.  vi.  12  ;  xiii.  3,  10,  21 ;  Matt.  xvii.  3  ;  Luke  i.  11  ; 
xxii.  43  ;  Acts  ii.  3 ;  vii.  2  ;  xvi.  9  ;  xxvi.  16)  ;  being  only 
visible  to  those  for  whose  sakes  they  are  vouchsafed,  and 
to  whom  they  are  willing  to  show  themselves.'  Those  to 
whom  this  manifestation  was  vouchsafed  are  enumerated. 
*  There  were  together  Simon  Peter,  and  Thomas  called  Didy- 
mus,  and  Nathanael  of  Cana  in  Galilee,  and  the  sons  of 
Zebedee,  and  two  other  of  his  disciples.  St.  John,  as  is  well 
Icnown,  has  no  list  of  Apostles.  This  is  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  one  in  his  gospel.  It  makes  something  for  the 
opinion,  unknown  to  antiquity,  but  yet  so  probable,  and  by 
some  now  accepted  as  certain,  that  the  Nathanael  of  St. 
John  is  the  Bartholomew  of  the  other  Evangelists,  thus  to 
find  him  named  not  after,  but  in  the  midst  of,  some  of  the 
chiefest  Apostles.  Who  were  the  two  unnamed  disciples 
cannot  certainl}'  be  known.  They  could  scarcely  be  other 
than  Apostles, — a  word,  it  should  be  remembered,  which 
St.  John  nowhere  uses  to  distinguish  the  Twelve,  indeed 
uses  only  once  (xiii.  16)  in  all  his  writings, — '  disciples'  in 
the  most  eminent  sense  of  the  word.  Lightfoot  supposes 
that  they  were  AndrcAV  and  Philip ;  which  is  very  likely ;  for 
where  Peter  was,  there  his  brother  Andrew  would  scarcely 
be  wanting  (Matt.  iv.  18  ;  Mark  i.  29  ;  Luke  vi.  14  ;  John  vi. 
8),  and  where  Andrew  there  in  all  likelihood  would  be  Philip 
as  well  (John  i.  45  ;  xii.  22  ;  Mark  iii.  18).  In  all  other  lists 
of  the  Apostles  the  sons  of  Zebedee  occupy  a  place  imme- 
diately after  Peter  (Mark  iii.  16,  17;  Acts  i.  13),  or  after 
Peter  and  Andrew  (Matt.  x.  2).     Here  they  are  the  last  of 

^  Thus  Ambrose  on  the  appearing  of  the  Angel  to  Zacharias  {Exp.  in 
Luc.  i.  24)  :  Bene  a^ipannsse  dicitur  ei,  qui  eum  repente  conspexit.  Et 
hoc  specialiter  aut  de  Angelis  aut  de  Deo  Scriptura  divina  tenere  con- 

suevit ;  ut  quod  non  potest  prrevideri,  apparere  dicatur Non  enim 

similiter  sensibilia  videntur,  et  is  in  cujus  voluntate  situm  est  videri,  et 
cujus  naturae  est  non  videri,  voluntatis  videri.  Nam  si  non  vult,  non  vi- 
detur :  si  vult,  videtur.  And  Chrysostom  here :  'Er  ti^  slnth'f  trpav'tpwatv 
iavrhv,  TovTu  dqXcl,  on  tl  fu]  j/^fXf,  K<ii  avrug  lavrov  liu  (jvyKaid^aaiv  fipavr- 
pwaiy,  ovx  bifjaro,  rov  awfiarog  ufTog  ci<pSdpTov. 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  4S3 

tliose  actually  named.  This  is  exactly  what  we  might  ex- 
pect, if  St.  John  was  the  author  of  this  Chapter,  but  it 
would  scarcely  have  otherwise  occurred. 

The  announcement  of  Peter,  '  /  go  a-Jls7ii7ig,'  is  not,  as 
it  has  been  strangely  interpreted,  a  declaration  that  he  has 
lost  all  hope  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  has  renounced  his 
apostleship,  and,  since  now  there  is  no  nobler  work  in  store 
for  him,  will  return  to  his  old  occupation.  A  teacher  in 
that  new  kingdom  which  his  Lord  had  set  up,  he  is  follow- 
ing the  wise  rule  of  the  Jewish  Rabbis,  who  were  ever  wont 
to  have  some  manual  trade  or  occupation  on  which  to  fall 
back  in  time  of  need.  We  all  know  of  what  good  service 
to  St.  Paul  was  his  skill  in  making  tents,  and  what  inde- 
pendence it  gave  him  (2  Thess.  iii.  8).  Probably  too  they 
found  it  healthful  to  their  own  minds,  to  have  some  out- 
ward employment  for  which  to  exchange  at  times  their 
spiritual.  This  challenge  of  St.  Peter  to  the  old  compa- 
nions of  his  toil  is  at  once  accepted  by  them  :  '  They  say 
unto  him,  We  also  go  with  thee.  They  went  forth,  and  en- 
tered into  a  ship  immediately ;  and  that  night  they  caught 
nothing.'  It  fared  with  them  now,  as  it  had  fared  with 
three,  or  perhaps  four,  among  them  on  a  prior  occasion 
(Luke  V.  5).  Already  a  dim  feeling  may  have  risen  up  in 
their  minds  that  this  night  should  be  a  spiritual  counter- 
part of  that  other ;  and  as  that  was  followed  by  a  glorious 
day,  and  by  their  first  installation  in  their  high  office  as 
'  fishers  of  men,'  this  present  ill-success  may  have  helped 
to  prepare  their  spirits  for  that  wondrous  glimpse  which 
they  were  now  to  receive,  of  what  their  work,  and  what  its 
reward,  should  be.  Had  it  been,  however,  more  than  the 
obscurest  j^resentiment,  they  would  have  been  quicker  to 
recognize  their  Lord,  when  with  the  early  dawn  He  *  stood 
on  the  shore.''  It  was  an  appropriate  time ;  for  '  heaviness 
may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  cometh  in  the  morning ' 
(Ps.  XXX.  5 ;  cf.  xix.  5 ;  cxliii.  8)  ;  morning  is  here,  as  so 


^.84  THE  SECOND  MIRACULOUS 

often,  the  tjjDe  of  dawning  salvation.^  ISTor  was  the  place 
less  appropriate ;  He  now  on  the  firm  land  (it  had  not  been 
so  once,  Luke  v.  i-i  i),  they  still  on  the  unquiet  sea.'^  But 
as  yet  their  eyes  were  holden  ;  '  the  disciples  hiew  not  that 
it  was  Jesus*  (cf.  xx.  14  ;  Luke  xxiv.  16) ;  He  was  to  them 
but  as  a  stranger,  and  in  the  language  of  a  stranger  He 
addressed  them  ;  '  Children,  have  ye  any  meat  ? '  putting 
this  question,  Chrysostom  supposes,  as  one  that  would  pur- 
chase from  them  of  the  fruit  of  their  toil :  but  rather,  I 
should  imagine,  as  with  that  friendly  interest,  not  unmixed 
with  curiosit}^,  which  almost  all  take  in  the  result  of  labours 
proverbially  uncertain,  being  now  utterly  defeated,  now 
crowned  with  largest  success.  '  They  answered  Him,  No,' - 
The  question  was  indeed  asked  to  draw  forth  this  acknow- 
ledgment from  their  lips  ;  for  in  small  things  as  in  great, 
in  natural  as  in  spiritual,  it  is  well  that  the  confessions  of 
man's  poverty  should  go  before  the  incomings  of  the  riches 
of  God's  bounty  and  grace  (cf.  John  v.  6  ;  vi.  7-9). 

'  And  He  said  unto  than.  Cast  the  net  on  the  right  side  of 

'  There  is  a  sublime  reaching:  out  after  an  expression  of  this  in  the 
opening  of  the  Ehdra  of  Sophocles.  With  the  arrival  of  Orestes  at  his 
lathei-'a  house,  about  to  purify  that  houi^e  from  the  hideous  stains  of 
blood,  the  long  night  of  the  triumphing  of  the  wicked  is  spent,  and  the 
day  of  righteous  retribution  is  at  hand.  With  what  consummate  skill  and 
in  what  glorious  poetry  the  greatest  artist,  if  not  the  greatest  poet,  of 
the  ancient  world  surrounds  his  arrival  with  all  the  signs  and  tokens  of 
the  dawning  day.     Thus  17-19  : 

ior  iifjiv  ij^i/  Xa^Trpui'  ijXiov  aiXn^ 
Up  I  Kivu  (p'^iyfiaT'  opviPwv  rral  Ti, 
ft'tXaiva  T'dcTTpiov  tKXfXonriv  iv^oot')}, 

'  Gregory  the  Great  {Horn,  xxiv.)  :  Quid  enim  mare  nisi  prpesens  se- 
culum  signat,  quod  se  causaruni  tumultibus  et  undis  vitte  corruptibilis 
illidit?  Quid  per  soliditatem  littoris,  nisi  ilia  perpetuitas  quietis  peternse 
figuratur.P  Quia  ergo  discipuli  adhuc  fluctibus  raortalis  vitre  inerant,  in 
mari  laborabant.  Quia  autem  Redemtor  noster  jam  corruptionem  carnis 
excesserat,  post  resurrectioneni  suam  in  littore  stabat.  So  too  Grotius, 
the  occasional  depth  and  beauty  of  whose  annotations  have  scarcely  ob- 
tained the  credit  which  they  deserve :  Significans  se  per  resurrectionem 
jam  esse  in  vado,  ipsos  in  salo  versari.  For  Ilim  henceforward  there  ia 
no  more  sea  (l\ev.  xxi.  1). 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  45?.5 

the  ship,  and  yo  shall  find.''  They  take  the  counsel  as  of 
one  possibly  more  skilful  than  themselves  :  '  They  cast  there- 
fore, and  now  they  were  not  able  to  draw  it  for  the  multitude 
of  fishes.'  But  this  is  enough ;  there  is  one  disciple  at 
least,  '  tliat  disciple  ivhom  Jesus  loved/  who  can  no  longer 
doubt  with  whom  they  have  to  do.  That  other  occasion, 
when  at  the  bidding  of  their  future  Lord  they  enclosed  so 
vast  a  multitude  of  fishes  that  their  net  brake,  rose  clear 
before  his  eyes  (Luke  v.  i-ii).  It  is  the  same  Lord  in 
whose  presence  now  they  stand.  And  he  says,  not  yet  to 
all,  but  to  Peter,  to  him  with  whom  he  stood  in  nearest 
fellowship  (John  xx.  3  ;  Acts  iii.  i),  who  had  best  right  to 
be  first  made  partaker  of  the  discovery,  '  It  is  the  Lord.' 
Each.  Apostle  comes  wonderfully  out  in  his  proper  charac- 
ter :^  he  of  the  eagle  eye  first  detects  the  presence  of  the 
Beloved ;  and  then  Peter,  the  foremost  ever  in  act,  as 
John  is  ijrofoundest  in  speculation,  unable  to  wait  till  the 
ship  shall  touch  the  land,  casts  himself  into  the  sea,  that 
he  may  find  himself  the  sooner  at  his  Saviour's  feet  (Matt. 
xiv.  28;  John  XX.  6).  He  was  before  '  naJced,'  stripped, 
that  is,  for  labour,  wearing  only  the  tunic,  or  garment 
close  to  the  skin,  and  having  put  off  his  upper  and  super- 
fluous   garments ;  "^    for  '  naked '  means   no  more.     Now, 

'  Chrysostom :  'Qg  ^e  iTr'tyyionav  avTuff  TrciXtv  rd  uuoi.ia-u  tuji'  oikiiuji' 
iTTi^nicfvvTai  TpoTTwn  01  /.lo'  TiTul  TlErpvc  KOI  Iwini'ijQ'  !)  ph'  ydp  Otpfjrrfpog, 
o   Si    {i\pii\(''rfpng   ijv'    Kn'i    6   pii>   oXi'Tipog    //i-,  o   f'i    SionnTiKMrifnn.      Tl'istram 

(^Natural  History  of  the  Bible,  p.  285)  :  '  The  density  of  the  shoals  of  fish 
in  the  sea  of  Galilee  can  scarcely  be  conceived  by  those  who  have  not 
■witnessed  them.' 

^  Thus  Virgil  :  Nudus  ara  (cf.  Matt.  xxiv.  18),  following  Ilesiod,  who 
bids  the  husbandman  ymwoi'  mTiunu-,  yvjiro]'  rt  fioujTur,  Cincinnatus  was 
found  'naked'  at  the  plough,  when  called  to  be  Dictator,  and  sent  for 
bis  toga  that  he  might  appear  before  the  Senate  (Pliuy,  H,  N".  xviii.  4) ; 
and  Plutarch  says  of  Phocion,  that,  in  the  country  and  with  the  army, 
he  went  always  unshod  and  '  naked  '  {drvn-oCiirnQ  utl  kw  yvpj'oc  ii3  'h^n)  : 
while  Grotius  quotes  from  Eusebius  a  yet  apter  passage,  in  which  one 
says,  y'lpriv  yvaihq  iv  Ttp  Xir(p  tirOi'ipnTi,  The  Athenian  jest  that  the 
Spartans  showed  to  foreigners  their  virgins  '  naked  '  must  be  taken  in 
the  same  sense, — with  only  the  chiton  or  himation  (MUUer,  IJoiitmfi, 
iv,  z,  3).      Cf.   I   Sam.  xix.  24;  Isai.  xx.  3  ;  at  which  last  passage  the 


4-86  THE   SECOND  MIRACULOUS 

however,  lie  girded  himself  with  his  fisher's  coat,*  as  count- 
iug  it  unseemlj  to  appear  without  it  in  the  presence  of 
his  Lord.^  Some  suppose  that  he  walked  on  the  sea ; 
but  we  have  no  right  to  multiply  miracles,  and  the  words, 
*  cast  himself  into  the  sea,"*  do  not  warrant  this.  Rather,  he 
swam  and  waded  to  the  shore,'  which  was  not  distant 
more  than  about  '  two  hundred  cubits,'  *  that  is,  about  one 
hundred  yards.  The  other  disciples  followed  more  slowly  ; 
for  they  were  encumbered  with  the  net  and  its  weight  of 
fishes.  This,  having  renounced  the  hope  of  lifting  it  into 
the  boat,  they  dragged  ^  after  them  in  the  water,  toAvard 
the  land.  'As  soon  then  as  they  were  come  to  land,  they  saw  a 
■fire  of  coals,  and  fish  laid  thereon,  and  bread  ' — by  what 
ministry,  natural  or  miraculous,  has  been  often  inquired  ; 
but    we    must   leave    this  undetermined    as    we    find   it. 

Deist  Tiudal  ignorautly  scoffs,  as  tlioiigli  God  bad  commanded  an  inde- 
cency (see  Deylinir,  Ohss.  Sac.  vol.  iv.  p.  888,  seq  ,  the  Diet,  of  Gr.  and 
Rom.  Atitt.  s.  V.  Nudus ;  and  Tristram,  Natural  History  of  the  Bible, 
p.  290. 

^  Deyling:  '?.TrirU'Ti)v  ad  Christum  iturus  sibi  circumjiciebat,ne  minus 
honestus  et  modestus  in  conspectum  Domini  veniret.  Others,  as  Euthy- 
mius  and  Lanipe,  suppose  this  iTrncvrrii;  -was  the  only  gfirment  which  be 
bad  on ;  that  even  as  regarded  that,  he  was  a^icff-oc,  and  so,  in  a  manner, 
yi'/u.'if :  but  going  to  the  Lord,  be  girt  it  up ;  whether  for  comeliness,  or 
that  it  might  not  hinder  him  in  swimming.  The  matter  would  be  clear, 
if  we  knew  certainly  what  the  iTrevcvnig  was ; — plainly  no  tinder  garment 
or  vest,  worn  close  to  the  skin,  vTro^rnii;  (see  Passow,  s.  vv. )  ;  but  rather 
that  worn  over  all,  as  the  robe  which  Jonathan  gives  to  David  is  called 
TOP  tTr(vSi''Tt]v  TOP  tn-avM  (i  Sam.  xviii.  4).  This  is  certainly  the  simplest 
explanation ;  that  Peter,  being  stripped  before,  now  hastily  threw  bis 
upper  garment  over  him,  which  yet  be  girt  up,  that  it  might  not  prove 
an  impediment  in  swimming. 

*  Ambrose :  Immemor  periculi,  non  tamen  immemor  reverentise. 
'  Id. :  Periculoso  compendio  religiosum  maturavit  obsequium. 

*  Ovid's  advice  to  the  fisher  is  to  keep  this  moderate  distance : 

Nee  tamen  in  medias  pelagi  te  pergere  sedes 
Admoneam,  vastique  maris  tentare  profundum. 
Inter  utrumque  loci  melius  moderabere  finem,  &c. 

*  Observe  St.  John's  accurate  distinction  in  the  use  of  rrvpnv  here,  and 
iXKi'niv  at  ver.  6,  1 1  ;  this  being  to  draiv  to  you  (ziehen,  De  Wette)  j 
that,  to  draq  after  you  (nachschleppen)  :  see  my  Synonynts  of  the  NeM 
'Coitanifint,  §  21. 


nnAUGffT  OF   FTSHFS.  487 

•  Jtsi'ns  saith  nnfo  them,  Brivg  of  the  fish  which  ye,  have  now 
cauqht,'  These  sliall  be  added  to  those  already  preparing.' 
Peter,  again  the  foremost,  '  ive7it  up  and  drew  the  net  to 
land  full  of  great  fishes,  an  hundred  and  fifty  and  three ; ' 
while  yet,  setting  a  notable  difference  between  this  and  a 
similar  event  of  an  earlier  day  (Luke  v.  6),  'for  all  there 
were  so  many,  yet  was  not  the  net  hroJcen.' 

It  is  hard  to  believe  that  all  this  should  have  happened, 
or  be  recorded  with  this  emphasis  and  minuteness  of  detail, 
had  it  no  other  meaning  than  that  which  is  ostensible  and 
on  the  surface.  There  must  be  more  here  than  meets  the 
eye — an  allegorical,  or  more  truly  a  symbolic,  meaning 
underlying  the  literal.  Nor  is  this  very  hard  to  discover. 
Without  pledging  oneself  for  every  detail  of  Augustine's 
intei'pretation,^  it  yet  commends  itself  as  in  the  main 
worthy  of  acceptance.  He  puts  this  miraculous  draught 
of  fishes  in  relations  of  likeness  and  unlikeness  with  the 
other  before  the  resurrection  (Luke  v.  i-ii),  and  sees  in 
that  earlier,  the  figure  of  the  Church  as  it  now  is,  and  as 
it  now  gathers  its  members  from  the  world ;  in  this  later 
the  figure  of  the  Church  as  it  shall  be  in  the  end  of  the 
world,  with  the  large  incoming  and  sea-harvest  of  souls, 
'  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles '  which  then  shall  find  place.^ 

'  To  tlie  abundance  and  excellency  of  the  fish  in  tlii.s  lake  many  bear 
testimony.  Thus  Robinson  (i5/W/c«/  Beseaix-hes,  vol.  ii.  p.  261):  'The 
lake  is  full  of  fishes  of  various  kinds,'  and  he  instances  sturgeon,  chub, 
and  bream  ;  adding,  *  we  had  no  ditficulty  in  procuring  an  abundant 
supply  for  our  evening  and  Tuorning  meal ;  and  found  them  delicate  and 
■well-flavoured.' 

2  Augustine  (Serm.  ccxlviii.  1):  Nunquam  hoc  Pominus  juberet,  nisi 
aliquid  significare  vellet,  quod  nobis  nosse  expediret.  Quid  ergo  pro 
magno  potuit  ad  Jesum  Christum  pertinere,  si  pisces  caperentur  aut  si 
non  caperentur  ?     Sed  ilia  piscatio,  nostra  erat  significatio. 

^  Augustine  (In  Ei\  Joh.  tract,  cxxii.)  :  Sicut  hoc  loco  qualiter  in  seculi 
fine  futura  sit  [Ecclesia],  ita  Dominus  alia  piscatioue  significavit  Eccle- 
siam  qualiter  nunc  sit.  Quod  autem  illud  fecit  in  initio  proedicationis 
suse,  hoc  vero  post  resuiTectionem  suam,  hinc  ostendit  illam  capturam 
piscium,  bonos  et  malos  significare,  quos  nunc  h.ibet  Ecclesia ;  istam  vero 
tantummodo  bonos  quos  habebit  in  reternum,  completa  in  fine  hujus 
Beculi  resurrections  mortuorum.     Denique  ibi  Jesus,  non  sicut  hie  in  lit- 


4.SS  ^-'^'^  SECOXD  MIRACULOUS 

On  that  lirst  occasion  tlie  '  fisliers  of  men'  that  should  l)e, 
were  not  particularly  bidden  to  cast  the  net  on  the  right 
hand  or  on  the  left ;  for,  had  Christ  said  to  the  right,  it 
vrould  have  implied  that  none  should  be  taken  but  the 
good, — if  to  the  left,  that  only  the  bad  ;  while  yet,  so  long 
as  the  present  confusions  endure,  both  bad  and  good  are 
enclosed  in  the  nets  ;  but  now  He  says,  '  Cast  the  net  on  the 
right  side  of  the  ship,'  implying  that  all  which  are  takeii 
should  be  good ;  and  this,  because  the  right  is  ever  the 
hand  of  value.  Thus  the  sheep  are  placed  at  the  right 
hand  (Matt.  xxv.  33)  ;  the  ri(/ht  eye,  if  need  be,  shall  be 
plucked  out,  the  right  hand  cut  off  (Matt.  v.  29,  30) ;  the 
right  eye  of  the  idol  shepherd,  the  eye  of  spiritual  under- 
standing, shall  be  utterly  darkened.  (Zech.  xi.  17).  Ezekiel 
llos  on  his  left  side  for  Israel,  but  on  his  right  for  Judah 
(Ezek.  iv.  4,  6)  ;  which,  with  all  its  sins,  has  not  yet  been 
rejected  (cf.  Hos.  xi.  12;  Gen.  xlviii.  17;  i  Kin.  ii.  19; 
Acts  vii.  55).  Then  the  nets  were  broken  with  the  multi- 
tude of  fishes,  so  that  all  were  not  secured  which  once  were 
within  them  ; — and  what  are  the  schisms  and  divisions  of 
the  present  condition  of  the  Church,  but  rents  and  holes 
through  which  numbers,  that  impatiently  bear  the  re- 
straints of  the  net,  break  away  from  it  ? — but  now,  in  the 
end  of  time,  'foi'  all  there  were  so  many,  yet  was  not  the  net 

tore  stabat,  quando  jussit  pisces  capi,  sed  ascendens  in  uuam  navim  .  .  . 
dixit  ad  Siraoneni,  Uuc  in  altum,  et  laxate  retia  vestra  in  capturam.  .  .  . 
Ibi  retia  non  mittuntur  in  dexteram,  ne  solos  significent  bonos,  nee  in 
sinistrani,  ne  solos  males ;  sed  indiflerenter,  Laxate,  inquit,  retia  vestra 
in  capturam,  ut  permixtos  intelligamus  bonos  etmalos:  hicautem  inquit, 
Mittite  in  dexteram  navigii  rete.  ut  siirnificaret  eos  qui  stabant  ad  dexte- 
ram, solos  bonos.  Ibi  rete  propter  significanda  schisniata  rumpebatur ; 
Iiic  vero,  quoniam  tunc  jam  in  ilia  summa  pace  sanctorum  nulla  erunt 
scbismata,  pertinuit  ad  Evangelistam  dicere,  Et  cum  tanti  essent,  id  est, 
tarn  magni,  non  est  scissum  rete ;  tanquam  illud  respiceret  ubi  scissum 
est,  et  iu  illius  mali  comparatione  commendaret  hoc  bonum.  Cf.  Serm. 
ccxlviii.-cclii. ;  Brev.  Call.  con.  Do7iat.  3  ;  Qucest.  83,  qu.  8  ;  and  Gregory 
the  Great  (Hum.  in  Evang.  24),  who,  following  the  exposition  of  Augus- 
tine, yet  makes  for  more  of  Peter's  part,  especially  of  his  bringing  of  the 
imt  to  land,  all  which  may  easily  be  accounted  for,  the  idea  of  the  Papacy 
having  iu  his  time  developed  itself  much  further. 


DRAUGHT   OF  FISHES.  489 

hroken.''  '  On  that  first  occasion  tlie  fisli  were  brought 
into  the  ^hip,  itself  still  tossed  on  the  nnqiiiet  sea,  even 
as  men  in  the  present  time  who  are  taken  for  Christ  are 
brought  into  the  Church,  itself  not  in  haven  yet ;  but  here 
the  nets  are  drawn  up  to  land,  to  the  safe  and  quiet  shore 
of  eternity.^  Then  the  ships  were  wellnigli  sunken  with 
their  burden,  for  so  is  it  with  the  ship  of  the  Church, — 
encumbered  with  evil -livers  till  it  wellnigh  makes  ship- 
wreck altogether ;  but  no  danger  of  this  kind  threatens 
liere.^  There  a  great  bnt  indefinite  multitude  was  enclosed; 
but  here  a  definite  number,  even  as  the  number  of  the  elect 
is  fixed  and  pre-ordained ;  ■*  and  there  small  fishes  and 
great,  for  nothing  to  the  contrary  is  said  ;  but  here  they 
are  all  '  great,''  for  all  shall  be  such  who  attain  to  that 
kingdom,  being  equal  to  the  Angels.-^ 

^  oiiK  irix'inQti.  Already  in  the  apostolic  times  ay_inj_ia  -was  the  technical 
term  for  the  spiritual  rents  in  tlie  Church ;  thus  see  i  Cor.  i.  10  ;  xi.  18  ; 
xii.  25. 

*  Augustine  (Si;rm.  ccli.  5)  :  In  ilia  piscatione  non  ad  littus  adtracta 
sunt  retia :  sed  ipsi  pisces  qui  capti  sunt,  in  naviculas  fusi  .Eunt.  Hie 
autem  traxerunt  ad  littus.  Spera  finem  seculi.  Cf.  Gregorj'  the  Great, 
Hum.  xxiv.  in  Evang. 

*  Augustine  (Scrm.  ccxlix.)  :  Implentur  navigia  duo  propter  populos 
duos  de  circumcisione  et  praeputio :  et  sic  implentur,  ut  premantur,  et 
pene  mergantur.  Hoc  quod  significat  gemendum  est.  Turha  turbavit 
Ecclesiam.  Quam  magnum  nunierum  fecerunt  male  viventes,  prementes 
et  gemciites  [pene  mergontes  ?].  Sed  propter  pisces  bonos  non  sunt  mersa 
na\ngia. 

*  Augustine  and  others  enter  into  laborious  calculations  to  show  why 
the  tishes  were  exactly  one  hundred  and  fifty-three,  and  the  mystery  of 
this  number ;  while  Hengstenberg  believes  that  the  key  to  the  explana- 
tion is  to  be  found  at  2  Chron.  ii.  17.  But  the  significance  is  not  in  that 
particular  number,  which  seems  chosen  to  exclude  this,  herein  unlike  the 
hundred  and  forty-four  thousand  (12X12)  of  the  Apocalypse  (vii.  4); 
but  in  its  being  a  fixed  and  definite  number  at  all:  just  as  in  Ezekiel's 
temple  (ch.  xl.  seq.)  each  measurement  is  not,  and  cannot  be  made,  sig- 
nificant; but  that  all  is  by  measurement  is  most  significant;  for  thus  we 
are  taught  that  in  the  rearing  of  the  spiritual  temple  no  caprice  or  wii- 
fulness  of  men  may  find  room,  but  that  all  is  laid  down  according  to  a 
pre-ordained  purpose  and  will  of  God.  To  number,  as  to  measure  and  to 
weigh,  is  a  Divine  attribute :  cf.  Job  xxviii.  25  ;  xxxviii.  5  ;  Isai.  xl.  12  ; 
and  the  noble  debate  in  St.  Augustine  {De  Lib.  Arhit.  ii.  11- 16)  on  a^l 
the  works  of  wisdom  being  by  number. 

^  Auguet'ne  (Serm.  ccxlviii.  3)  :  Quis  est  enim  ibi  tunc  parvus,  quando 
erunt  asquales  Angelis  Dei  ? 


490  THE  SECOND  MlltACULOUS 

*  Jesus  saitlh  unto  them,  Come  and  dine.  Aad  yione  oj  Hie 
disciples  durst  ask  Him,  Who  art  Thou  ?  knowltnj  tiiatilwas 
the  Lord.'  But  if  they  knew,  why  should  they  desu'e  to 
ask?  I  take  the  Evangelist  to  imply  that  they  would 
gladly  have  obtained  from  his  own  lips  an  avowal  tliat  it 
was  Himself  and  no  other ;  yet  they  did  not  venture  to  put 
the  question — it  seemed  to  them  so  much  too  bold  and 
familiar — which  would  have  drawn  this  avowal  from  Him. 
They  knew  '  that  it  was  the  Lord ; '  yet  would  they  willingly 
have  had  this  assurance  sealed  and  made  yet  more  certain 
to  them  by  his  own  word,  which  for  all  this  they  shrunk 
from  seeking  to  obtain,  so  majestic  and  awe-inspiring  was 
his  presence  now  '  {cf.  iv.  27). 

That  which  follows  is  obscure,  and  without  the  key 
which  the  symbolical  explanation  supplies,  would  be 
obscurer  yet.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  meal  which 
they  found  ready  prepared  for  them  on  the  shore,  and 
which  the  Lord  with  his  own  hands  distributed  to  them  ? 
For  Himself  with  his  risen  body,  it  was  superfluous,  nor 
does  He  seem  to  have  shared,  but  only  to  have  dealt  to 
them,  the  food;  as  little  was  it  needed  by  them,  whose 
dwellings  were  near  at  hand  ;  while  indeed  a  single  loaf, 
or  flat  cake,  and  a  single  fish,  would  have  proved  a  scanty 
meal  for  the  seven.  But  we  must  continue  to  see  an 
under-meaning,  and  a  rich  and  deep  one,  in  all  this.  As 
that  large  capture  of  fish  was  to  them  the  pledge  and 
promise  of  a  labour  that  should  not  be  in  vain,^  so  the 

^  Augustine  does  not  seem  to  nie  to  have  qtnte  hit  it  (In  Ev.  Juli. 
tract,  cxxiii.)  :  Si  ergo  sciebant,  quid  opua  erat  ut  interrogaient  ?  Si 
autem  non  opns  erat,  quare  dictum  est,  non  audebant ;  quasi  opus  asset, 
sed  timore  aliquo  non  auderent  ?  Sensus  ergo  hie  est :  Tanta  erat  eviden- 
tia  veritatis,  qua  Jesus  illis  discipulis  apparebat,  ut  eorum  non  solum 
negare,  sed  nee  dubitare  quidera  ullus  auderet :  quoniam  si  quisquam 
dubitaret,  utique  inten-ogare  deberet.  Sic  ergo  dictum  est,  Xenio  audebat 
eum  inttirrogare,  Tu  quis  es  ?  ac  si  diceretur,  Nemo  audebat  dubitare  quod 
ipse  esset.     Cf.  Chrvsostom,  In  Joh.  Horn.  Ixxxvii. 

'  Maldonatus :  Missurus  erat  paulo  post  Christus  discipulos  suos  in 
oTinom  terrarura  orbein,  quasi  in  altum  ac  latum  mare,  ut  homines  pisca- 


nn AUGHT  OF  FISHES.  491 

meal,  wljen  the  labour  was  done,  a  meal  of  the  Lord's  own 
preparinjT  and  dispensing,  and  ^  iiijon  the  sJiore,'  was  the 
symbol  of  the  great  festival  in  heaven  Avith  which,  after 
their  earthly  toil  was  over,  He  would  refresh  his  servants, 
Avhen  He  should  cause  them  to  sit  down  with  Abraham 
and  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  (Matt.  xxii.  i  ;  xxv. 
20;  Luke  xii.  37;  xxii.  30;  E,ev.  vii.  17;  xix.  9).  The 
character  of  the  meal  was  sacramental,  and  it  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  stilling  of  their  present  hunger,' 

The  most  interesting  conversation  which  follows  hangs 
too  closely  upon  this  miracle  to  be  past  over.  Christ  has 
given  to  his  servants  a  prophetic  glimpse  of  their  work 
and  their  reward ;  and  He  now  declares  to  them  the  sole 
conditions  under  which  this  woi'k  may  be  accomplished, 
and  this  reward  inherited.  Love  to  Him,  and  the  unre- 
served yielding  up  of  self  to  God — these  are  the  sole 
conditions,  and  all  which  follows  is  to  teach  this  :  thus  the 
two  portions  of  the  chapter  constitute  together  a  perfect 
whole.  '  So  when  they  had  dined,  Jesus  saith  to  Simon 
Peter,  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me  more  tha,n  these  ?  '^ 
In   that    compellation,   '  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,''  there  Avas 

rentur.  I'oterant  inscitiam,  poterant  imbecillitatem  suam  excusare,  se 
homines  esse  litteraruin  rudes,  id  est,  piscandi  imperitos,  paucos  prteterea 
et  infinnos,  qui  posse  se  tot  tanique  grandes  pisces  capere,  tot  oratores, 
tot  tantosque  philosopbos  irretire  et  a  sententia  dimovere  ?  Voluit  ergo 
Christus  exeniplo  artis  proprife  docere  id  ipsos  suis  viribus  suaque  indu- 
stiia  fiicere  nuUo  modo  posse,  idque  significat  quod  totam  laborantes  noc- 
tem  nihil  ceperant;  ipsius  vero  ope  atque  auxilio  facillime  facturos. 

*  Augustine  (/«  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  cxxiii.)  :  Pisois  assus,  Christus  est  pas- 
8US.  Ipse  est  et  panis  qui  da  coelo  descendit.  Ilinc  incorporatur  Ecclesia 
ad  participandaiu  beatitudiueni  sempiteruam.  Ammonius :  To,  ii.ivTt 
dpitTtvaan,  ahnyna  f;^4i  6  Xiiyor,  on  /.ttra  roi'g  Trih'ovc  ^laCi^trni  Tovg  ayinvg 
avaTravaiQ  neat  Tpvcprj  ical  aTToXavrtc.  Gregory  the  Great  (Hotn.  xxiv.  VI 
Evatig.)  notes  how  the  number  who  here  feast  with  the  Lord  are  seven, 
the  number  of  perfection  and  completion. 

"^  IWtiov  Tovruv.  This  miyht  mean,  and  Whitby  affirms  that  it  does 
mean, — 'more  than  thou  lovest  these  things,  thy  nets  and  thy  boat  and 
other  worldly  gear.'  But  the  words,  so  understood,  yield  a  sense  so 
trivial  and  unworthy,  as  to  render  it  impos:~ible  that  this  can  be  the 
liOrd's  mearing. 

82 


^92  THE  SECOND   MIRACULOUS 

already  that  which,  must  have  wrung  the  Apostle's  heart. 
It  was  as  though  his  Lord  would  say  to  him,  '  Where  is 
that  name  Peter,  which  I  gave  thee  (Matt.  xvi.  i8  ;  John 
i.  42)  ?  where  is-  the  Eock,  and  the  rock-like  strength, 
which,  when  most  needed,  I  looked  for  in  vain  (Matt.  xxvi. 
69-75)  ?  not  therefore  by  that  name  can  I  address  thee  now, 
but  as  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  child  of  man;  for  all  that 
was  higher  in  thee  has  disappeared.' '  In  the  question 
itself  lies  a  plain  allusion  to  Peter's  vainglorious  word, 
not  recorded  by  this  Evangelist,  '  Though  all  men  shall  be 
offended  because  of  Thee,  yet  will  I  never  be  offended ' 
(Matt.  xxvi.  33) ;  though  Hengstenberg  in  his  self-confident 
way  denies,  in  the  face  of  all  expositors  of  all  times,  that 
there  is  here  any  reference  to  that  former  boast  of  his. 
Peter  felt  that  there  was  so,  and  no  longer  casting  any 
slight  by  comj^arison  on  the  love  of  his  fellow-disciples,  is 
satisfied  with  affirming  his  own,^  appealing  at  the  same 
time  to  the  Lord,  the  searcher  of  all  hearts,  whether,  de- 
spite of  all  that  miserable  backsliding  in  the  palace  of  the 
High  Priest,  this  love  of  his  was  not  fervent  and  true.  *  He 
saith  unto  Him,  Yea,  Lord,  Thou  Tcnoivest  that  I  love  Thee.' 
The  Lord's  rejoinder,  '  Feed  my  sheep,'  *  Feed  my  lamhs,'  is 
not  so  much,  '  Show  then  thy  love  in  act,'  as  rather,  '  I 
restore  to  thee  thy  apostolic  function  ;  this  grace  is  thine, 
that  thou  shalt  yet  be  a  chief  shepherd  of  my  flock.' '     It 

^  We  read  in  The  Modern  Syriom,  p.  304,  of  one  of  the  Caliphs  that 
*  he  used  to  give  his  principal  officers  an  honourable  sirname  suited  to 
their  qualities.  When  he  wished  to  show  his  dissatisfaction,  he  used  to 
drop  it,  callinjj  them  by  their  own  names ;  this  caused  them  great  alarm. 
When  he  resumed  the  employment  of  the  sirname,  it  was  a  sign  of  their 
return  to  favour.' 

*  Augustine  (Senn.  cxlvii.  2):  Non  potuit  dicere  nisi,  Amo  te:  non 
»U3US  est  dicere,  plus  his.  Noluit  iterum  esse  meudax.  Suffecerat  ei 
testimonium  perhibere  cordi  suo :  non  debuit  esse  judex  cordis  alieni. 

"  In  the  other  way  the  words  are  more  commonly  understood ;  thus 
by  Augustine  a  hundred  times,  as  Sc?-m.  cxlvi.  i :  Tamquam  et  diceret, 
A  mas  me?  In  hoc  ostende  quia  amas  me,  Pasce  oves  meas.  But  Cyril, 
Chrysostom,  Euthymius,  are  with  me.  Thus,  too,  Calvin  :  Nunc  illi  tam 
lihertas  docendi  quam  auctoritas  restituitur,  quarum  utramque  amiserat 
sua  culpa. 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  493 

implies,  therefore,  tlie  fullest  forgiveness  of  tlie  past,  since 
none  but  the  forgiven  could  rightly  declare  the  forgiveness 
of  God.  The  question,  *  Lovest  thou  Me  ? '  '  is  thrice 
repeated,  that  by  three  solemn  affirmations  he  may  efface 
his  three  denials  of  his  Lord^  (John  xviii.  17  ;  xxv.  27). 
At  last,  upon  the  third  repetition  of  the  question,  '  Feter 
roas   grieved ; '  and  with  yet-  more  emphasis  than  before 


1  AVlien  the  Lord  first  puts  the  question  to  Peter,  it  is  aya n-^cMfj 
Peter  changes  the  word,  and  replies,  0 1  \  (i  <t£  (ver.  15);  a  second  time 
aya-GQ  appears  in  the  Lord's  question,  and  (^iXui  in  Peter's  reply  (ver.  16); 
till  on  the  third  occasion  Jesus,  leaving  aytnr(ic,  asks  the  question  in 
Peter's  own  word,  ■  iXf?c  /«f ;  on  which  Peter  for  the  third  time  replies, 
(^(Xw  (Tf  (ver.  17).  There  is  nothing  accidental  here,  as  is  plain  from  the 
relation  in  which  cifu-av  and  eiXtir  stand  to  one  another.  They  difler 
very  nearly  as  diligere  and  amare  in  Latin  (see  Doderlein,  Lat.  Sijnon. 
vol.  iv.  p.  89,  seq. ;  and  my  Synonyms  of  the  Neiu  Testament,  §  12);  the 
Vulgate  marking  by  help  of  these  Latin  equivalents  the  alternation  of  the 
words.  'Ayanitv  (=diligere=:deligere)  has  more  of  judgment  and  de- 
liberate choice ;  ^iXtTi'  (^amare)  of  attachment  and  special  personal 
affection.  Thus  ayairac  on  the  lips  of  the  Lord  seems  to  Peter  too  cold 
a  word  ;  as  though  his  Lord  were  keeping  him  at  a  distance;  or  at  least 
not  inviting  him  to  draw  as  near  as  in  the  passionate  yeai'ning  of  his 
heart  he  desired  now  to  do.  Therefore,  putting  this  by,  he  substitutes 
0(Xw  in  its  room.  A  second  time  he  does  the  same.  And  now  he  has 
conquered ;  for  when  the  Lord  demands  a  third  time  whether  he  loves 
Him,  He  employs  the  word  which  alone  will  satisfy  Peter,  which  alone 
expresses  that  personal  affection  witli  which  his  heart  is  full.  Ambrose, 
though  not  expressing  himself  very  happily,  has  a  right  insight  into  the 
matter  {Exp.  in  Liic.  x.  176)  :  Illud  quod  diligentius  intuendum,  cur  cum 
Dominus  dixerit,  Diliyis  me  ?  ille  respondent :  Tu  scis,  Domine,  quia 
amo  te.  In  quo  videtur  mihi  dilvctio  habere  animi  caritatem,  amor  quen- 
dam  sestum  conceptum  corporis  ac  mentis  ardore,  et  Petrum  opinor  non 
solum  animi,  sed  etiani  corporis  sui  signare  flagrantiam. 

^  Augustine  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  cxxiii.):  Kedditur  negatloni  trinse 
trina  confessio ;  ne  minus  amori  lingua  serviat  quam  timori :  et  plus 
vocis  elicuisse  videatur  mors  imminens,  quam  vita  prassens.  Enarr.  in 
Ps.  xxxvii.  13  :  Dimec  trina  voce  anioris  solveret  trinam  vocem  negatio- 
nis.  Senn.  cclxxxv. :  Odit  Dens  prsesumtores  de  viribus  suis;  et  tumo- 
rem  istum  in  eis,  quos  diligit,  taniquam  niedicus  secat.  Secando  quidem 
infert  dolorem  ;  sed  firmat  postea  sanitatem.  Itaque  resurgens  Dominus 
commondat  Petro  oves  suas  illi  negatori ;  sed  negatori  quia  prtesumtori, 
postea  pastori  quia  amatori.  Nam  quare  ter  interrogat  amantem,  nisi  ut 
compungat  ter  negantem  ?  Serm.  ccxcv.  4 :  Ter  vincat  in  amore  confes- 
sio, quia  ter  victa  est  in  timore  praesunitio.  Cf.  Enarr.  ii.  in  i's.  xc.  12. 
So  Cyril,  Chrysostom,  Epiphanius,  Apollinarisj  and  Ammonius :  Aia  rpiwD 
rwv  Eflioriianov  Kai  KUTiiBintwv  ii,aXti<j.ii  rdc  Tptlg  ij.wiug  Tijg  apiiiattuc^  kc.i  via 


^94  THE  SECOND  MIRACULOUS 

appeals  to  the  omniscience  of  iiis  Lord,  wlietlier  it  was  not 
true  tliat  indeed  lie  loved  Him :  '  Lord,  Thou  Jcnowest  all 
tilings ; ' — confessing  this,  lie  confesses  to  his  Godhead,  for 
of  no  other  but  God  could  this  knowledge  of  the  hearts  of 
all  men  be  predicated  (Ps.  vii.  9  ;  cxxxix. ;  Ezek.  xi.  5  ; 
Jer.  xvii.  10;  i  Kin.  viii.  39;  John  ii.  24,  25;  xvi.  30; 
Acts  i.  24) ;  and  from  this  pbint  of  view  the  title  '  Lord/ 
which  he  ascribes  to  his  Master,  assumes  a  new  signifi- 
cance ; — '  Thou  Jcnowest  that  I  love  Thee.'  ' 

Many  have  refused  to  see  any  distinction  between  the 
two  commissions,  'Feed  my  sheep,'  and  'Feed  my  lamhs.'^ 
To  me  nothing  seems  more  natural  than  that  by  *  lambs ' 
the  Lord  intended  the  more  imperfect  Christians,  the 
*  little  children  '  in  Him  (Isai.  xl.  11);  by  the  '  sheejo '  the 

Xoyoji'    iTTfU'opBol    ra    ii>   Xoyoic    ysio/iti'a    TrraiTfiara.      Not    otherwise    the 

Church  hymn : 

Ter  confessus  ter  negatum, 
Gregera  pascis  ter  donatum, 
Vitil,  verbo,  precibus. 

^  Augustine  (&?•?«.  ccliii.  i):  Contristatus  est  Petriis.  Quid  contri- 
staris,  Petre,  quia  ter  respondes  aniorem  ?  Oblitus  es  trinum  timorem  ? 
Sine  interi'oget  te  Dominus :  medicus  est  qui  te  interrogat,  ad  sanitatem 
pertinet,  quod  interrogat.  Noli  tfedio  affici.  Expecta,  impleatur  numerus 
dilectionis,  ut  deleat  numerum  negationis. 

**  The  received  text  makes  the  order  in  Christ's  threefold  commission 
to  Peter,  to  be  as  follows:  anvici  (ver.  15),  Trpojiara  (ver.  16),  and  again 
irpofiara  (ver.  17).  Tischendorf,  on  the  authority  of  A  C,  for  the  last 
Trpnftara  reads  7rpo/5nTi(7,  which  word,  never  else  occurring  in  the  New 
Testament,  nor  yet  in  the  Septuagint,  would  scarcely  have  found  its  way 
without  just  cause  into  the  text.  At  the  same  time  apvla,  Trpinia-n,  irpo- 
fiartri,  fail  altogether  in  this  order  to  make  a  climax ;  and  one  is  tempted 
to  suspect  that  rrpofidrict  and  Tpoftura  should  cliange  places ;  all  then 
would  follow  excellently  well.  Remarkably  confirming  this  conjecture, 
first  made,  I  believe,  by  Bellarmine,  St.  Ambrose  {Ex}).  in  Luc.  x.  176), 
expounding  this  text,  uses  his  Latin  equivalents  exactly  in  this  order ; 
first  agnos  {=.iipvia)^  then  oviculas  {=.Trpoi3uTin),  and  lastly  oves  (=-p6- 
f3  iT(i):  nor  is  this  an  accident,  but  he  makes  a  point  of  this  ascending  scale, 
saying  on  that  third  injunction,  'Feed  my  sheep -.^  Et  jam  non  agnos,  nee 
oviculas,  sed  oves  pascere  jubetur.  We  further  note  that  the  Vulgate  has 
not  one  agnos  and  two  oves,  which  would  correspond  to  our  received 
reading,  but  two  agnos  and  one  oves,  which  is  much  nearer  that  which 
is  conject'n'ed.  In  the  Peschito,  justly  celebrated  for  its  verbal  accuracy, 
there  is  a  ditierence  exactly  answering  to  Ambrose's  agnos,  oviculas,  and 

OT«S8.  _ 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHED.  ^^^ 

more  advanced,  the  'young  men'  and  'fathers'  '  (i  Jolin 
ii.  12-14).  The  interpretation  indeed  is  groundless  and 
triflino-,  made  in  the  interests  of  Rome,  which  sees  in  the 
'  lamhs  '  the  laity,  and  in  the  '  slieejp  '  the  clergy ;  and 
that  here  to  Peter,  and  in  him  to  the  Roman  pontiffs,  was 
given  dominion  over  both.  The  commission  should  at 
least  have  run,  '  Feed  my  sheejp,'  '  Feed  my  shepherds,'  if 
any  such  conclusions  were  to  be  drawn  from  it,  though 
many  and  huge  links  in  the  chain  of  proofs  would  be 
wanting  still. ^ 

But  '  Feed  my  sheep  '  is  not  all.  This  life  of  labour  is  to 
be  crowned  with  a  death  of  painfulness ;  such  is  the  way, 
with  its  narrow  and  strait  gate,  which  even  for  a  chief 
Apostle  is  the  only  one  which  leads  to  eternal  life.  The 
Lord  will  show  him  beforehand  what  great  things  he  must 
suffer  for  his  sake ;  as  is  often  his  manner  with  his  elect 
servants,  with  an  Ezekiel  (iii.  25),  with  a  Paul  (Acts  xxi. 
11),  and  now  with  a  Peter.  '  When  thou  wast  young,  thou 
girdedst  thyself,  and  walhedst  whither  thou,  wouldest ;  hut 
when  thou  shalt  he  old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands,  and 
another  shall  gird  thee,  and  carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest 
not.'  ^  A  ju'ophetic  allusion  is  here  made  to  the  crucifixion 
of  Peter,  St.  John  himself  declaring  that  Jesus  spake  thus, 
'signifying  hy  what  death  he  should  glorify  God '  (cf.  John  xii. 
33  ;  and  I  Pet.  iv.  16,  in  which  last  passage  we  cannot  fail 
to  recognize  a  reminiscence  of  these  words) ;  and  no  reason- 
able grounds  exist  for  calling  in  question  the  tradition  of 

^  Wetstein:  Oves  istpe  quo  tempore  Petro  committe'bantur,  erant 
adliuc  teneri  agni,  novitii  discipuli  a  Petro  ex  Judseis  et  gentibus  addu- 
cendi.  Quando  vero  etiam  oves  committit,  significat  euin  ad  senectutem 
victurum,  et  ecclesiam  constitutam  et  ordinatam  visurum  esse. 

*  See  Bernard,  De  Consid.  ii.  8  ;  and  a  curious  letter  of  Pope  Innocent 
{Epjj.  ii.  Ep.  209)  on  the  wliole  series  of  passages  in  Scripture,  and  this 
among  the  number,  on  which  the  claims  of  Romish  supremacy  rest :  the 
series  begins  very  early,  namely  with  Gen.  i.  1 6. 

^  Instead  of  the  words  aXXof  ^tio-fi  o-f,  k.  r.  X.,  the  Codex  Sinaiticus  haa 
this  remarkable  variation,  aXXoi  ^loaovaiv   ct,  kuI   Troiliaovaii'  aoi  oaa  oii 


49^  THE    SECOND   MIRACULOUS 

tlie  Clmrcli,  that  such  was  the  manner  of  Peter's  martyr- 
dom.' Doubtless  it  is  here  obscurely  intimated;  *  but  this 
in  the  very  nature  of  prophecy,  and  there  is  quite  enougli 
in  the  description  to  sliow  that  the  Lord  had  this  and  no 
other  manner  of  death  in  his  eye.  The  stretched-forth 
hands  are  the  hands  extended  on  the  transverse  bar  of  the 
cross.'  The  girding  by  another  is  the  binding  to  the 
cross,  the  sufferer  being  not  only  fastened  to  the  instru- 
ment of  punishment  veith  nails,  but  also  bound  to  it  -with 
cords.^  It  cannot  be  meant  by  the  bearing  '  whither  thou 
wouldest  not,'  that  there  should  be  any  reluctancy  on  the 
part  of  Peter  to  glorify  God  by  his  death,  except  indeed 
the  reluctancy  which  there  always  is  in  the  flesh  to  suffer- 
mg  and  pain  (Ephes.  v.  29) ;  a  reluctancy  in  his  case,  as  in 
his  Lord's  (cf.  Matt.  xxvi.  39),  overruled  by  the  higher 
willingness  to  do  and  to  suffer  the  perfect  will  of  God.  In 
this  sense,  as  it  was  a  violent  death, — a  death  which  others 

*  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccl.  ii.  25 ;  iii.  i. 

'  Bleek  {Beitrdge  zur  Emng.  Kritik,  p.  237)  tliinks  tlie  adaptation  of 
these  words  to  the  death  by  crucifixion  altogether  forced  and  artificial, 
and  proposes  quite  another  interpretation  of  them  ;  but  one  which  will 
scarcely  commend  itself  even  to  those  who  find  the  commonly  received 
not  wholly  satisfactory. 

Theophylact:  T))v  inl  rod  aravpov  ttcrnniv  Kn\  tu  Ct^nn  t';jXiT.  The 
passages  most  to  the  point  as  showing  that  this  would  be  an  image  which 
one  who,  without  naming,  yet  wished  to  indicate,  crucifixion,  would  use, 
are  these:  Seneca  (Consol.  ad  Marciam,  20):  Video  istic  cruces  nou 
unius  quidem  generis ;  .  .  ,  .  alii  brachia  patibulo  explicueruut ;  Tertul- 
lian  (De  Pndic.  22)  :  In  patibulo  jam  corpore  expanso ;  and  again,  with 
allusion  to  the  stretching  out  of  the  hands  in  prayer;  Paratus  est  ad 
omne  supplicium  ipse  habitus  orantis  Christiani :  Arrian  {Epictetus,  iii. 
26):  'K.xTiii'ai;  (TiacTov,  log  o'l  itrrcivfKjj^t'n'oi.  The  passage  adduced  from 
Plautus, 

Credo  ego  tibi  esse  eundum  extra  portam, 
Dispessis  manibus  patibulum  quum  habebis, 

is  not  quite  satisfying ;  being  probably  an  allusion  to  the  marching  of 
the  criminal  along,  with  his  arms  attached  to  the  fork  upon  his  neck, 
before  he  was  himself  fastened  to  the  cross  (see  Becker,  Gallus,  vol.  i. 
p.  131;  and  Wetstein,  in  loc). 

*  So  TertuUian  (Scorp.  15)  :  Tunc.  Petrus  ab  altero  cingitur,  cum  cruci 
astringitur;  or  it  may  be,  as  Liicke  suggests,  the  girding  the  sufferer 
round  the  middle,  who  otherwise  would  be  wholly  naked  oii  the  cross; 
he  quotes  from  the  Evang.  Nicod.  10  :  'VXiSverav  ol  arfjariuirai  rof  'Jjjctovj'  ra 
t^ia-ia  ainovf  Ka\  ntpii^waav  avT'iv  \tvrii{>. 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  497 

chose  for  him, — a  death  from  which  flesh  and  blood  would 
naturally  shrink,  it  was  a  carrying  '  whither  he  would  not;'^ 
though,  in  a  higher  sense,  as  it  was  the  way  to  a  nearer 
vision  of  God,  it  Avas  that  toward  which  he  had  all  his  life 
been  striving ;  and  then  he  was  borne  whither  most  he 
would ;  and  no  word  here  implies  that  the  exulting  ex- 
clamation of  another  Apostle,  at  the  near  approach  of  his 
martyrdom  (2  Tim.  iv.  6-8  ;  cf.  Phil.  i.  21,  23),  would  not 
have  suited  his  lips  just  as  well.'^  It  is  to  this  prophetic 
intimation  of  his  death  that  St.  Peter  probably  alludes 
in  his  second  Epistle  (i.  14). 

The  symbolical  meaning  which  we  have  found  in  the 
earlier  portions  of  the  chapter  must  not  be  excluded  from 
this.  To  '  gird  oneself '  is  ever  in  Scripture  the  sign  and 
figure  of  promptness  for  an  outward  activity  (Exod.  xii.  1 1 ; 
2  Kin.  iv.  29  ;  Luke  xii.  35  ;  xvii.  8  ;  Acts  xii.  8  ;  i  Pet.  i. 
13  ;  Ephes.  vi.  14)  ;  so  that,  in  fact,  Christ  is  saying  to 
Peter,  *  When  thou  wert  young,  thou  adecht  for  Me ; 
going  whither  thou  wouldest,  thou  wert  free  to  work  for  Me, 
and  to  choose  thy  field  of  work.  But  Avhen  thou  art  old, 
thou  slialt  learn  another,  a  higher  and  a  harder  lesson ; 
thou  shalt  suffer  for  Me ;  thou  shalt  no  more  choose  thy 
work,  but  others  shall  choose  it  for  thee,  and  that  work 
shall  be  the  work  of  passion  rather  than  of  action.'  Such 
is  the  history  of  the  Christian  life,  and  not  in  Peter's  case 
only,  but  the  course  and  order  of  it  in  almost  all  of  God's 
servants.  It  is  begun  in  action,  it  is  perfected  in  suffering. 
In  the  last,  lessons  are  learned  which  the  first  could  never 
have  taught ;  graces  exercised,  which  else  would  not  at  aU, 

^  Chrysostom  (/«  Juh.  Jloin.  88):  "Ottod  01'/  BtXti^  Tt~]s  <pvafug  Xiyn  t6 
(TiYtTTa'^ff  t«(  rt'ig  rr(,iiKuQ  T )) r  nj'«y(c//r,  Ka'i  on  aicoxirra  anoppriyvvTai  ror 
nwitaroL  >';  vf/ii\i';.  Cf.  Augustine's  beautiful  words,  Serm.  cexcix.,  and 
Senn.  clxxiii.  2  :  Quis  enim  vult  mori  ?  Prorsus  nemo  :  et  ita  nemo  ut 
beato  Petro  dicerotur,  Alter  te  cinget,  et  feret  quo  tu  non  vis. 

*  Guilliaud:  Carni  mors  nunquam  adlubescit,  et  nolle  mori  carni  coo- 
natum  est.  Hoc  nolle  Clnistus  in  bumeros  suos  transtulit  ut  vinceret. 
Quare  ut  Cbristus  hoc  nolle  in  se  vicit  (ut  in  carne  nostra  maneat  aliquod 
vestig-ium),  ita  per  fidem  victoria  in  nos  transfertur. 


4-98  THE  SECOND  MIRACULOUS 

or  Avould  only  liave  very  weakly,  existed.  Tims  was  it,  for 
instance,  with  a  John  Baptist.  He  begins  Avith  Jerusalem 
and  all  Judaea  flowing  to  him  to  listen  to  his  preaching  ; 
he  ends  with  lying  long,  a  seemingly  forgotten  captive,  in 
the  dungeon  of  Machffirus.  So  was  it  with  a  St.  Chrysostom. 
The  chief  cities  of  Asia  and  Europe,  Antioch  and  Constan- 
tinople, wait  upon  him  with  reverence  and  homage  while 
he  is  young,  and  he  goes  whither  he  would ;  but  when  he 
is  old,  he  is  borne  up  and  down,  whither  he  would  not,  a 
sick  and  suffering  exile.  Thus  should  it  be  also  with  this 
great  Aj)Ostle,  It  was  only  in  this  manner  that  whatever  of 
self-will  and  self-choosing  survived  in  him  still,  should  be 
broken  and  abolished,  that  he  should  be  brought  into  an 
entire  emptiness  of  self,  a  perfect  submission  to  the  will  of 
God.» 

He  who  has  shown  him  the  end,  will  also  show  him  the 
way ;  for  '  when  He  had  spoken  this,  He  saith  unto  him, 
Follow  Me.'  These  words  signify  much  more  than  in  a 
general  way,  '  Be  thou  an  imitator  of  Me.'  The  scene  at 
this  time  enacted  on  the  shores  of  Gennesaret,  was  quite 
as  much  in  deed  as  in  word  ;  and  here,  at  the  very  moment 
that  the  Lord  sj^ake  the  words,  it  would  seem  that  He  took 

^  In  this  view  the  passage  was  a  very  favourite  one  with  the  mystic 
writers.  Thus  Thauler  (Hoiinl.  p.  176)  :  Sic  et  nobiscum  agit  Dominus 
Deus  noster.  In  conversionis  nostroe  primordiis  amoris  sui  igne  suavis- 
sinio  nos  inflammabat,  duleedinem  suam  crebro  nos  sentire  faciebat, 
adeoque  muneribus  gratise  sure  nostram  trahebat  Toluntatem,  ut  quicquid 
volebat  ipse  optatissimuni  erat  voluntati  nostrse.  At  nunc  aliter  se  res 
habet;  alia  nunc  nobis  via  gradienduni  est.  Vult  namque  Deus  ut  pro- 
priam  voluntatem  nostram  et  nosipsos,  licet  ipsa  voluntas  renitatur  pluri- 
mum,  penitus  abnegemus,  et  ipsuui  Domiuum  Deum  nostrum  in  his  quag 
dura  nobis  et  adversa  sinit  occurrere,  et  in  ea  quam  nobis  exhibet 
austeritate  atque  rigore,  in  omni  denique  eventu  etiam  contra  voluntatem 
sensualitatis  nostrte,  sponte  ac  toto  affectu  suscipiamus.  Hoc  est  quod 
idem  ipse  olim  sue  discipulo  et  Apostolorum  principi  ait.  Cum  esses,  in- 
quit,  junior,  cingeba^  te,  et  ambulabas  quo  volebas.  Cum  autem  senueris, 
alius  te  cinget,  et  ducet  quo  tu  non  vis.  .  .  .  Yult,  inquam,  ut  velle  et 
nolle  cesset  in  nobis,  ut  sive  det,  sive  auferat,  sive  abundemus,  sive  penu- 
riam  sentiamus,  periude  sit  nobis ;  ut  demum  abdicantes  omnia  et  obli- 
vioni  tradentes,  ipsum  solum  in  gratis  et  odiosis  nude  capiamus,  utque 
ceteris  quibusque  neglectis,  ipsi  uni  inhserearaus. 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  499 

gome  paces  along  the  rough  and  rocky  shore,  bidding  Petei 
to  follow ;  thus  setting  forth  to  him  in  a  figure  his  future 
life,  which  should  be  a  following  of  his  divine  Master  in 
the  rude  and  rugged  path  of  Christian  action.'  All  this 
was  not  so  much  spoken  as  done;  for  Peter,  '  hmiing 
about,' — looking,  that  is,  behind  him, — '  seeth  the  disciple 
whom  Jesus  loved ' — words  not  introduced  idly,  and  as  little 
so  the  allusion  to  his  familiarity  at  the  Paschal  supper, 
but  to  explain  the  boldness  of  John  in  following  unbidden  j^ 
him  he  sees  'following,'  and  thereupon  inquires,  'Lord,  and 
what  shall  this  man  do  ? '  He  would  know  what  his  portion 
shall  be,  and  what  the  issue  of  his  earthly  conversation. 
Shall  he,  too,  follow  by  the  same  rugged  path  ?  It  is  not 
very  easy  to  determine  the  motive  of  this  question,  or  the 
spirit  in  which  it  was  asked :  it  was  certainly  something 
more  than  a  mere  natural  curiosity.  Augustine  takes  it 
as  the  question  of  one  concerned  that  his  friend  should  be 
left  out,  and  not  summoned  to  the  honour  of  the  same 
close  following  of  his  Lord  with  himself;  who  would  fain 
that  as  in  life,  so  in  death  they  should  not  be  divided  (2 
Sam.  i.  23).^  Others  find  a  motive  less  noble  in  it;  that  it 
was  put  more  in  the  temper  of  Martha,  when  she  asked 
the  Lord,  '  Lord,  dost  Thou  not  care  that  my  sister  hath 

1  Grotiu3  here  says  excellently  well :  Sicut  modo  res  ante  gestas  signa 
dicendorum  surasit,  ita  nunc  quod  dixerat  signo  conspicuo  exprimit.  Nam 
Sequere  me,  sensum  habet  et  ilium  communem  cui  etiani  Petrus  in 
prfesens  paruit,  et  mysticum  alterum.  Alludit  ad  id  quod  dixerat  Matt. 
X.  38. 

^  Bengel :  Ut  autem  in  coena  ilia  ita  nunc  quoque  locum  quaerebat, 
et  se  familiariter  insinuabat,  propemodum  magis,  quam  Petrus  libenter 
per  ferret. 

*  Senn.  ccliii.  3  :  Quomodo  ego  sequor,  et  ipse  non  sequitur?  Jerome's 
(Ado.  Jomn.  i.  26)  is  sliglitly  different:  Nolens  deserere  Johannem,  cum 
quo  semper  fuerat  copulatus.  In  later  times  many  have  seen  in  Peter's 
words  the  jealousy  of  the  practical  life  for  the  contemplative.  The  first 
thinks  hardly  of  the  other,  counts  it  a  shunning  of  the  cross,  a  shrinking 
from  earnest  labour  in  the  Lord's  cause, — would  fain  have  it  also  to  be  a 
martyr  not  merely  in  will,  but  in  deed  ;  see  on  this  matter  the  very  inter- 
esting extracts  from  the  writings  of  the  Abbot  Joachim,  in  Neander, 
Kirch.  Gesch.  vol.  v,  p.  440, 


5O0  THE   SECOND   MIRACULOUS 

left  me  to  serve  alone  ?  '  (Luke  x.  40),  ill  satisfied  that 
Mary  sliould  remain  quietly  sitting  at  Jesus'  feet,  -while 
she  was  engaged  in  laborious  service  for  Him.*  It  is  cer- 
tainly possible  that  Peter,  knowing  all  which  that  '  Follow 
jifc,'  addressed  to  himself,  implied,  may  have  felt  a  mo- 
ment's jealousy  at  the  easier  lot  assigned  to  John. 

But  let  it  have  been  this  jealousy,  or  that  anxiety  con- 
cerning the  way  in  which  the  Lord  would  lead  his  fellow 
Apostle  (and  oftentimes  it  is  harder  to  commit  those  whom 
we  love  to  his  guiding  than  ourselves,  and  to  dismiss  in 
regard  of  them,  all  distrustful  fears),  it  is  jplain  that  the 
source  out  of  which  the  question  proceeded  was  not  alto- 
gether a  pure  one.  There  lies  something  of  a  check  in  the 
reply.  These  '  times  and  seasons '  it  is  not  for  him  to 
know,  nor  to  intermeddle  with  things  which  are  the  Lord's 
alone.  He  claims  to  be  the  allotter  of  the  several  portions 
of  his  servants,  and  gives  account  of  none  of  his  matters  : 

^  Partly  no  doubt  their  general  character,  as  unfolded  in  the  Gospels, 
but  mainly  this  passage,  has  caused  the  two  Apostles,  St.  Peter  and  St. 
John,  to  be  accepted  in  the  Church  as  the  types,  one  of  Christian  action, 
the  other  of  Christian  contemplation ;  one,  like  the  servants,  working  for 
its  absent  Lord  ;  the  other,  lilie  the  virgins,  waitiny  for  Ilim :  the  office 
of  the  first,  the  active  labouring  for  Christ,  to  cease  and  pass  away,  when 
the  need  of  this  should  have  passed  j  but  of  the  other  to  remain  (/livm) 
till  the  coming  of  the  Lord,  and  not  then  to  cease,  but  to  continue  for 
evermore.  Thus  Augustine  in  a  noble  passage,  of  which  this  is  but  a 
fragment  (In  Ev.  Joh.  tract,  cxxiv.)  :  Duas  itaque  vitas  sibi  diviuitus 
prtedicatas  et  commendatas  novit  Ecclesia,  quaruni  est  una  in  fide,  altera 
in  specie  ;  una  in  tempore  peregrinationis,  altera  in  aiteraitate  mansionis; 
una  in  labore,  altera  in  requie ;  una  in  via,  altera  in  patria ;  una  in  opere 
actionis,  altera  in  mercede  contemplationis ;  .  .  .  .  una  bona  et  mala 
discernit,  altera  quse  sola  bona  sunt,  ceruit :  ergo  una  bona  est,  sed 
adhuc  misera,  altera  melior  et  beata.  Ista  siguificata  est  per  Apostolum 
Petrum,  ilia  per  Johannem.  Tota  hie  agitur  ista  usque  in  hujus  seculi 
finem,  et  illic  invenit  finem:  differtur  ilia  complenda  post  hujus  seculi 
finem,  sed  in  futuro  seculo  non  habet  finem.  Ideo  dicitur  liuic,  Sequere 
me :  de  illo  autem,  Sic  eura  volo  manere  donee  veniam,  quid  ad  te  ?    Tu 

me  sequere Quod  apertius  ita  dici  potest,  Perfecta  me  sequatur 

actio,  informata  meoe  passionis  exemplo ;  inchoata  vero  contemplatio 
maneat  donee  venio,  perficienda  cum  venero.  All  this  reappears  in  the 
twelfth  century  in  connexion  with  the  Ecangelium  yElenutm  (see  Neander, 
as  in  the  last  note). 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  50' 

'  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee? 
folloiv  thou  Me'  (cf.  John  ii.  4).  At  the  same  time  this, 
like  so  many  of  our  Lord's  repulses,  is  not  a  mere  repulse. 
He  may  refuse  to  comply  with  an  untimely  request,  yet 
seldom  or  never  by  a  blank  negation  ;  and  often  He  gives 
even  in  the  very  act  of  seeming  to  deny ;  his  Nay  proving 
indeed  a  veiled  Yea.  So  it  was  here.  For  assuredly  the 
error  of  those  brethren  who  drew  from  these  words  the 
conclusion,  '  that  that  disciple  should  not  die^  had  not  its 
root  in  the  mistaking  a  mere  hypothetical  '■  If  I  will,''  for  a 
distinct  prophetical  announcement.  That  '  If  I  ivill '  is 
no  hypothetical  case.  As,  Christ  did  not  mean,  so  cer- 
tainly the  disciples  did  not  take  Him  to  mean,  '  If  I  choose 
that  the  laws  of  natural  decay  and  death  should  be  sus- 
pended in  his  case,  and  that  thus  he  should  live  on  till  my 
return  to  judgment,  this  is  nothing  to  thee.'  Rather,  even 
while  He  checks  Peter  for  asking  the  question,  He  does 
declare  his  pleasure  that  John  should  '  tarry '  till  his 
coming.  Nor  may  we  empty  this  '  tarry '  of  all  deeper 
significance,  which  many,  willing  to  make  all  things  easy 
here,  but  who  only  succeed  in  making  them  easy  by 
making  them  trivial,  have  done — as  though  it  meant,  Harry ' 
in  Galilee,  or  '  tar-ry '  in  Jerusalem,  while  Peter  Avas  labor- 
iously preaching  the  Gospel  over  all  the  world.  To  '  tarry ' 
can  be  taken  in  no  other  sense  than  that  of  to  remain  alive 
(cf.  Phil.  i.  25  ;  I  Cor.  xv.  6 ;  John  xii.  34). 

But  how  could  Christ  thus  announce  that  John  should 
'  ta^'vy  '  till  He  came  ?  Two  answers  have  been  given. 
Augustine,  whom  Grotius,  Lampe,'  and  many  moderns 
follow,  understands  '  till  I  come  '  to  signify,  '  till  I  take  him 
away — till  I  summon  him  by  an  easy  and  natural  death  to 
Myself.'  But  where  then  is  the  antithesis  between  his  lot 
iind  Peter's  ?     However  violent  and  painful  the  death  of 

^  Si  nolo  eum  morte  violenta  tolli  quasi  ante  diem,  sed  manere  iu  pla- 
cida  senectute  superstitem  usque  dura  veniam  et  morte  naturali  ilium  ad 
me  recipiam,  quid  istud  ad  te  ? 


502  THE   SECOND   MIRACULOUS 

Peter  may  have  been,  yet  did  not  tlie  Lord  in  this  sense 
'  come  '  to  him  ?  does  He  not  come  to  every  faithful  believer 
at  the  hour  of  his  dej)arture,  be  his  death  of  what  kind  it 
may  ?  Resolve  this  into  common  language,  and  it  is  in 
fact,  '  If  I  will  that  he  live  till  he  die,  what  is  that  to  thee  ? ' 
Some  of  our  Lord's  sayings  may  appear  slight,  which  yet 
prove  most  deep ;  none  seem  deep,  and  yet  on  nearer  in- 
sj)ection  prove  utterly  slight  and  trivial,  as  this  so  inter- 
preted would  do.  We  shall  best  interpret  it  by  the  help 
and  in  the  light  of  Matt.  xvi.  28 ;  x.  23.  John  should 
'  tarry.'  He  only  among  the  twelve,  according  to  that 
other  and  earlier  announcement  of  his  Lord,  should  not 
taste  of  death,  till  he  had  seen  '  the  Son  of  man  coming  in 
his  kingdom.'  That  shaking,  not  of  the  earth  only,  but 
also  of  the  heaven,  that  passing  away  of  the  old  Jewish 
economy  with  a  great  noise,  to  make  room  for  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth,  this  he  should  overlive,  and  see 
the  Son  of  man,  invisibly,  yet  most  truly,  coming  to 
execute  judgment  on  his  foes  (Matt.  xxiv.  34).  He  only 
of  the  Twelve  should  survive  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
that  catastrophe,  the  mightiest,  the  most  significant,  the 
most  dreadful,  and  at  the  same  time,  as  making  room  for 
the  Church  of  the  living  God,  the  most  blessed,  which  the 
world  has  seen  ;  and  '  tarry  '  far  on  into  the  glorious  age 
which  should  succeed. 

Nor  was  this  all.  His  whole  life  and  ministry  should  be 
in  harmony  with  that  its  peaceful  end.  His  should  be  a 
still  work  througliout;  to  deepen  the  inner  life  of  the 
Church  rather  than  to  extend  outwardly  its  borders.  The 
rougher  paths  were  not  appointed  for  his  treading ;  he 
should  be  perfected  by  another  discipline.  Martyr  in  will, 
but  not  in  deed,  he  should  crown  a  calm  and  honoured  old 
age  by  a  natural  and  peaceful  death.  This,  which  Au- 
gustine and  others  make  the  primary  meaning  of  the  words, 
we  may  accept  as  a  secondary  and  subordinate.  It  was 
not,  indeed,  that  he,  or  any  other  saint,  should  escape  his 


DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES.  503 

share  of  tribulation,  or  that  the  way  for  him,  or  for  any, 
should  be  other  than  a  strait  and  a  narrow  one  (Eev.  i.  9). 
Yet  we  see  daily  how  the  sufferings  of  different  members 
of  the  kingdom  are  allotted  in  very  different  proportions  ; 
with  some,  they  are  comparatively  few  and  far  between, 
while  for  others,  their  whole  life  seems  a  constant  falling 
from  one  trial  to  another.' 

He  who  records  these  words  about  himself  notes,  but 
notes  only  to  refute,  an  expectation  which  had  gotten 
abroad  among  the  brethren,  drawn  from  this  saying  inac- 
curately reported  or  wrongly  understood,  that  he  should 
never  die ;  for,  of  course,  if  he  had  indeed  '  tarried '  to 
the  end  of  all,  then  mortality  would  in  him  have  been 
swallowed  up  in  life,  and  he  would  have  passed  into 
the  heavenly  kingdom  without  tasting  death  (i  Cor.  xv. 
51;  I  Thess.  iv.  17).  And  is  there  not  something  more 
than  humility  in  the  anxious  earnestness  with  which  he 
repels  any  such  interpretation  ?  No  such  mournful  prero- 
gative should  be  his  ;  not  so  long  shall  he  be  absent  from 
his  Lord.  There  lies  no  such  sentence  upon  him  of  weary 
and  prolonged  exclusion  from  that  presence  in  which  is 
fulness  of  joy  (Phil.  i.  23).  The  Synagogue  may  have 
its  'wandering  Jew,'  who  can  never  die;  but  this,  not 
because  there  rests  on  him  a  peculiar  blessing,  but  a 
peculiar  curse.  Yet  this  explicit  declaration  from  the  lips 
of  the  Apostle  himself,  that  Jesus  had  uttered  no  such 
word  as  that  he  should  not  die,  did  not  effectually  extin- 
guish such  a  belief  or  superstition  in  the  Church.  We 
find  traces  of  it  surviving  long ;  even  his  death  and  burial, 
which  men  were  compelled  to  acknowledge,  were  not  suf- 
ficient to  abolish  it.     For  his  death,  some  said,  was  only 

^  Bernard  {InNativ.  SS.  Innocent.  1)  :  Et  bibit  ergo  Johannes  calicein 
fialiitaris,  et  secutus  est  Dominiim,  siciit  Petrus,  etsi  nou  onini  modo  sicut 
Petrus.  Quod  enim  sic  mansit  ut  non  etiam  passione  corporea  Uominum 
soqueretur,  divini  fuit  consilii ;  sicut  ipse  ait,  Sic  eum  volo  nianere,  do- 
nee veniam.  Ac  si  dicat :  "V  uit  quidem  et  ipse  sequi,  sed  ego  sic  eum 
volo  manere. 


504  SECOND  DRAUGHT  OF  FISHES. 

the  appearance  of  death,  and  he  yet  breathed  in  his  grave ; 
so  that  even  an  Augustine  was  unable  wholly  to  resist  the 
reports  which  had  reached  him,  that  the  earth  yet  heaved, 
and  the  dust  was  lightly  stirred  by  the  regular  pulses  of 
his  breath.'  The  fable  of  his  still  living,  Augustine  at 
once  rejects ;  but  is  more  patient  with  this  report  than  one 
might  have  expected,  counting  it  possible  that  a  perma- 
nent miracle  might  be  ^vrought  at  the  Apostle's  grave. '^ 

'  In  JEv.  Joh.  tract,  cxxiv. :  Cum  mortuus  putaretur,  sepultum  fuisse 
dormientem,  et  donee  Christus  veniat  sic  luanere,  suamque  vitam  scatu- 
rigine  pulverls  indicare  :  qui  pulvis  creditur,  ut  ab  imo  ad  superficiera 
tumuli  ascendat,  flatu  quiesceutis  impelli.  Iluic  opinioni  supervacaneum 
existimo  reluctari.  Viderint  enim  qui  locum  sciunt,  utrum  hoc  ibi  faciat 
vel  patiatur  terra,  quod  dicitur;  quia  et  revera  non  a  levibus  bomiuibus 
id  audivimus. 

^  See  TevtnWian,  De  Animd,  50;  Hilary,  Z)e  T>-i>i.  vi.  39;  Ambrose, 
JE.V2J.  in  Ps.  cxviii.  iSerm.  xviii.  12  ;  Jerome,  Adv.  Jovin.  i.  26;  Abelard, 
Serm.  24;  Neander,  Kirch.  Gesch.  vol.  v.  p.  11 17.  This  superstition 
aided  mucli  the  wide-spread  faith  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  existence  of 
Prester  John  in  further  Asia.  So  late  as  tlie  sixteenth  century  an  en- 
thusiast or  impostor  was  burnt  at  Toulouse,  who  gave  himself  out  as 
St.  John ;  and  in  England  some  of  the  sects  of  the  Commonwealth  were 
looking  for  his  return  to  revive  and  reform  the  Church. — The  erroneous 
reading  Sic  [for  Si'\  eimi  volo  manere,  which  early  found  its  way  into 
the  Latin  copies,  and  which  the  Vulgate,  with  the  obstinate  persistence 
of  the  Romish  Chui'ch  in  a  once-admitted  error,  still  retains,  may  have 
helped  on,  and  served  to  maintain,  the  mistake  concerning  the  meaning  of 
tho  words  of  our  Lord. 

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